From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdetourde‧tour1 /ˈdiːtʊə $ -tʊr/ noun [countable] 1 WAY/ROUTEAVOIDa way of going from one place to another that is longer than the usual waymake/take a detour We took a detour to avoid the town centre.2 American English a different road for traffic when the usual road cannot be used SYN diversion British English
Examples from the Corpus
detour• Moving from consultant to implementer is a detour you should be aware of.• People with baby buggies have to walk in the roadway and residents, I think, have to make a detour.• Motorists wend their way through orange traffic cones and detour signs.• On our walk back to the ferry dock that afternoon we make one last detour to the beach.• This is the how-to, practical guide that will help you avoid opportunistic detours and stay on track.• She could make just a small detour ... She had a decent map, didn't she?• To justify such an approach it is necessary to take a theoretical detour.• Furthermore, I often took detours to avoid sand which the Land Rover had gone through using its four wheel drive.make/take a detour• But then-even before he opened his doors-he took a detour.• He made a detour to see it.• In any case all Euro-roads still lead to Rome, though they now take a detour through Mosae Trajectum.• Furthermore, I often took detours to avoid sand which the Land Rover had gone through using its four wheel drive.• Most fail when they take a detour into areas they know nothing about.• Attempting to make a detour, the car got bogged down in a salt lake and was abandoned.• People with baby buggies have to walk in the roadway and residents, I think, have to make a detour.• We used to make a detour going down Lenin Avenue.• We took a detour to avoid the street repairs.detourdetour2 verb [intransitive, transitive] American English WAY/ROUTEAVOIDto make a detour→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
detour• When the actual construction began, I detoured daily on my way to school to check out the progress being made.• Northbound traffic was being detoured from I-5 to Highway 33 northbound to 140 westbound and back to I-5.• Pacino detours his motorcade to visit the grieving parents.• But the movie tells the wrong story, getting detoured into a murder investigation whose solution is far too obvious.• Mitchell trudged down the hall toward his corner office, detouring into the washroom to assess the damage to his hair.• Later in the morning Fakhrti detoured over back roads to his house.• Before the opening of this new marina, yachts had to detour to the south to the Canaries.• On that same day, Franco ordered Varela to detour to Toledo.Origin detour1 (1700-1800) French détour 