English

Noun

desire path ‎(plural desire paths)

1. A footpath made through foliage, grass etc. by repeated traffic rather than laid out by design.
   • 2000, Fran Tonkiss, in Steve Pile & Nigel Thrift (Eds.), City A-Z, p. 1:

     In a fit of misplaced municipal energy, the local council is paving the desire path that countless walkers have beaten diagonally across my local park.

   • 2012, Andrew Greig, ‘Paths to Enlightenment’, Literary Review, issue 399:

     After finishing it I took the shortcut path through the wasteland to the supermarket – what they call a desire path – and looked at it afresh, thought about it and felt it differently.

Synonyms

• desire line