round trip
6 synonyms and 2 antonyms for round trip, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.
Noun — A journey to a place and back again to where you started.
Synonyms
Everyday swaps
Common words most readers know — safe in any writing.
Rare, literary or technical
Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.
Synonyms by Meaning
1. noun
A journey to a place and back again to where you started.
“It's a two-hour round trip to the nearest hospital.”
Opposites
2. adjective chiefly North American
Covering travel out and back. Usually written round-trip before a noun.
“A round-trip fare to Chicago.”
Opposites
3. noun technical
In computing, one complete exchange in which a request is sent and a response comes back.
“Cutting two round trips off the handshake made the page load noticeably faster.”
How to use round trip
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
Round trip is the standard American term for what British English calls a return. Hyphenated before a noun, open elsewhere.
Etymology
From round (“complete, entire"; "forming a circle or cycle”) + trip (“journey”).
Full origin of round trip →Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between round trip and return?
They mean the same thing — travel out and back. Round trip is American usage and return is British. Airlines selling internationally use either, and some booking sites show both labels.
Is a round-trip ticket cheaper than two one-ways?
Usually yes on airlines and long-distance rail, because carriers price return travel as a single product. It is not universal — low-cost airlines often price each leg independently, so two one-ways cost the same.
What does round trip mean in computing?
It means one full request-and-response cycle between two systems. Round-trip time, or RTT, measures how long that takes, and reducing the number of round trips is a standard way to speed up networked applications.