Obs.
1. One who makes or mends roads.
1483. Cath. Angl., 405/2. A Way maker or mender, portitor.
1609. in F. Devon, Issues Exch. Jas. I. (1836), 95. To Thomas Norton, his Majesty’s way-maker, appointed to oversee the performance or the mending of the highways … £29. 10s.
2. A person or thing that prepares the way for another; a forerunner, precursor; a prelude (to).
1574. T. Newton, Health Mag., T j b. Sleepe at noone … is a foremessanger or way-maker to Feuers, Apostumations, and Abscesses.
c. 1614. Sir C. Cornwallis, in Gutch, Coll. Cur., I. 139. Which match, I conceived, had been a preparation, and a way-maker to this other.
1634. Bp. Hall, Contempl., N. T., IV. iv. 117. What was his [John Baptist’s] errand, but to be the way-maker unto Christ?
1640. Bastwick, Ld. Bishops, viii. I j. Now the spirit of Prelacie was the very beginning of the Apostacie, which was Antichrists way-maker.
