'road-shipped' originates from Modern English, specifically as a compound of 'road' and the verb 'ship', where 'road' referred to a route over land and 'ship' meant 'to send' or 'to transport'.

'road' developed from Old English elements meaning journey/route (e.g. Old English 'rād'/'rād' related forms), while 'ship' as a verb derives from the noun 'ship' (Old English 'scip') and later the verbal use 'to ship' ('to send/transport') became common in Modern English; the compound 'road-ship' and its past-participle adjective 'road-shipped' arose in 20th-century logistics usage to specify transport by road.

Initially the elements literally meant 'road' + 'to ship (by vessel)', but as 'ship' generalized to 'transport/send', 'road-shipped' came to mean 'transported by road' rather than anything involving a ship.