traffic

Formstraffics, trafficking, trafficked

1. 1
   movement on roadsnoununcountable

   The movement of vehicles or pedestrians along roads and other routes, or the vehicles and pedestrians themselves.

   Rush-hour traffic on the interstate slowed to a crawl.

   Foot traffic through the plaza picks up around lunchtime.

   UsageSay heavy or light traffic, stuck in traffic, or a traffic jam (not incorrect: a traffic).

   Note

   The word first meant trade, from Italian trafficare, "to carry on trade," and the road sense grew out of it. When Shakespeare's Prologue promises "the two hours' traffic of our stage," traffic still means business, the dealings of the play, not anything on wheels.

2. 2
   website visitsnoununcountable

   The flow of visitors to a website or web page, or the volume of those visits.

   A single viral post tripled the blog's traffic overnight.

   The store's website gets most of its traffic from search engines.

   UsageSay a lot of traffic, traffic to a site; for an exact figure, people count visits or page views.

   Similarvisits, views

3. 3
   network datanoununcountable

   The flow of data, messages, or signals through a computer or telephone network.

   Network traffic spikes every evening as people stream movies.

   Engineers rerouted traffic away from the damaged undersea cable.

   Similaractivity, load

   Note

   Telephone engineers spoke of traffic on their lines long before computers, and the word passed to computer networks, where it means the data moving between machines: engineers measure its volume and reroute it around a failed link. Keep it apart from the visitors to a website, which counts people rather than data.

4. 4
   move illegallyverbtransitive or intransitive

   To deal in or smuggle illegal goods such as drugs, or to move people unlawfully in order to exploit them.

   The cartel is believed to traffic in cocaine and stolen guns along the border.

   Investigators say the ring trafficked dozens of workers across the border and forced them to work without pay.

   UsageAdds a k: trafficking, trafficked. Takes the goods directly (traffic weapons) or with in (traffic in stolen art).

   Similarsmuggle, run, deal

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The movement of people from place to place, or the carrying or exchange of goods in commerce.

   Freight traffic on the railroad doubled over the past decade.

   The airline expects passenger traffic to recover by next summer.

   UsageOften freight traffic, passenger traffic; in the old trading use, traffic in goods and with a partner.

   Similartransport, transportation, movement

   Note

   The merchant's word the whole family comes from. In Defoe's Robinson Crusoe the ship carried hatchets "for traffic with the Indians," and Emma Goldman titled an essay "The Traffic in Women."

6. 6
   noununcountable

   The illegal trade or exchange of goods, especially drugs or other contraband.

   International efforts to curb the heroin traffic have had mixed results.

   Smugglers used fishing boats to carry on a steady traffic in untaxed cigarettes.

   UsageGoods often come first (the drug traffic, the arms traffic) or follow in: traffic in cigarettes. Compare drug trafficking.

   Similartrafficking

7. 7
   verbusually passivetransitive

   To use a road, route, or area by traveling along or through it, or to visit a website, especially in great numbers.

   The forum is trafficked by millions of users each month, though most of them never post.

   Hikers traffic the lower stretch of the trail so heavily that the park service rebuilt it with stone steps.

   Similarfrequent, travel, use

   Note

   A verb mostly met in the passive or as a participle: a road, trail or forum is trafficked by its users, and a busy one is heavily trafficked. Like every form of this verb, it adds a k before -ed and -ing: trafficked, trafficking. The same spelling also carries the illegal trade, so in a sentence about drugs or people trafficked means smuggled, while a trafficked road or website is simply a busy one.

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