causeway [LME] The first element of causeway is from causey, now an archaic or dialect form, from Anglo-Norman French causee, based on Latin calx ‘lime, limestone’—material used for paving roads. The first recorded sense of causey was ‘mound, embankment, dam’. A causeyway was a way across a mound or a raised footpath by the side of a road which might be submerged in wet weather: this was then contracted to causeway.