ˈguide-post
A post with a direction-board affixed, set up for the guidance of travellers, e.g. at the fork of a road; a finger-post. Also transf. and fig.
| 1761 L. Sterne Tr. Shandy III. xxiii. 90 Wherever..three several roads meet..set up a guide-post in the centre of them. 1774 Burke Amer. Tax. 46 Great men are the guide-posts and land-marks in the state. 1812 Combe Picturesque 11, A guide-post rose within his view. 1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics I. Pref. 7 To distinguish between the genuine and the spurious in their opinion or their life, is to erect a guide-post on the very road we have ourselves to tread. 1872 Jenkinson Guide Eng. Lakes (1879) 121 Enter the road at the point where a guide-post directs to Langdale. 1873 Tristram Moab vii. 125 In this treeless land a fair-sized terebinth..was a conspicuous guide-post. 1940 [see audience 7 d]. 1967 Times Rev. Industry Feb. 16/1 Our prices and incomes board is an attempt to apply the experience of the USA in using guide posts to influence increases in wages and prices. |
Hence guide-post v. nonce-wd., to furnish with a guide-post. In quot. fig.
| 1890 Blackw. Mag. CXLVII. 264/1 The ancient well-trodden path of womankind, fenced and guide-posted, is..the best. |