In street-names the element gata denotes 'a street (in a town)'. It is a typically Scandinavian element, although it is related to German Gasse (f.), which has the sense 'narrow street or alley'. Scandinavian gata is thought originally to have had a meaning such as 'opening, way out' and perhaps to be associated with Modern English gate, with which it is sometimes confused, but in Scandinavian sources from before c.1500 it is certainly recorded with the meaning 'a road, street or path', predominantly one that is bounded on either side by fences (e.g. a fenced path for cattle), by trees (e.g. a path cut through a forest), by buildings (e.g. a street in an urbanised settlement) or by human-beings (e.g. a path slashed through opposing forces). It must also, however, have had a more general sense of 'road' or 'highway'. It is certainly used to translate the Latin terms via 'way' and semita 'path or lane' (cf. the À les of the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose in Copenhagen). Unfortunately, the word gata does not occur very frequently in early written sources either in Britain or in Scandinavia but it would seem that in Scandinavia gata was the word most frequently used for a street in urban areas in Denmark and southern Sweden, whereas the more commonly occurring elements in Norway are almenning and the loanword straeti from Latin via strata 'paved way'. The latter of these elements is of course also recorded in Anglo-Saxon England.
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