# traffic

Pronunciation: say "TRAF-ik" /ˈtɹæfɪk/

## Noun

1. The movement of vehicles or pedestrians along roads and other routes, or the vehicles and pedestrians themselves.
   - Simple: Cars, trucks, bikes, and people moving along roads and streets.
   - _Rush-hour traffic on the interstate slowed to a crawl._
   - _Foot traffic through the plaza picks up around lunchtime._
2. The flow of visitors to a website or web page, or the volume of those visits.
   - Simple: The people who visit a website, or how many people visit it.
   - _A single viral post tripled the blog's traffic overnight._
   - _The store's website gets most of its traffic from search engines._
3. The flow of data, messages, or signals through a computer or telephone network.
   - Simple: Information and messages moving through a computer or phone network.
   - _Network traffic spikes every evening as people stream movies._
   - _Engineers rerouted traffic away from the damaged undersea cable._
5. The movement of people from place to place, or the carrying or exchange of goods in commerce.
   - Simple: People moving from place to place, or goods being carried, bought, or sold in business.
   - _Freight traffic on the railroad doubled over the past decade._
   - _The airline expects passenger traffic to recover by next summer._
6. The illegal trade or exchange of goods, especially drugs or other contraband.
   - Simple: The illegal buying and selling of goods, especially drugs.
   - _International efforts to curb the heroin traffic have had mixed results._
   - _Smugglers used fishing boats to carry on a steady traffic in untaxed cigarettes._

## Verb

4. To deal in or smuggle illegal goods such as drugs, or to move people unlawfully in order to exploit them.
   - Simple: To buy, sell, or move illegal things like drugs, or to move people against the law to make money from 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._
8. To trade or bargain, often dishonestly or for selfish gain; also, to deal in or spread things such as rumors.
   - Simple: To buy, sell, or exchange things, often dishonestly, or to spread things such as rumors.
   - _Frontier traders would traffic with whichever side offered better terms._
   - _For years the newsletter trafficked in half-truths about its rivals, hoping to win over their customers._
7. To use a road, route, or area by traveling along or through it, or to visit a website, especially in great numbers.
   - Simple: To travel on a road or through a place, or to visit a website, especially when many people do it.
   - _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._

## Adjective

10. Congested; so filled with vehicles that movement is slow or stalled. *(Philippines)*
   - Simple: So full of cars and other vehicles that movement is slow.
   - _It was so traffic on the way home that a twenty-minute drive took two hours._
   - _It was already traffic by seven, so we took the back roads._

## Noun

9. The goods and commodities bought and sold in a market; merchandise. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The goods that people buy and sell at a market.

## Other meanings

- (noun) The amount of reader attention a particular page or section of a publication receives.
- (noun) In amateur (ham) radio, formal written messages that operators relay over the air on behalf of others.

## Origin

Traffic comes from Middle French trafique, from Italian traffico ('traffic') and trafficare ('to carry on trade'). Its ultimate source is uncertain: it may come from Vulgar Latin *trānsfrīcāre ('to rub across'), while Klein instead suggests the Italian goes back to Arabic تَفْرِيق (tafrīq, 'distribution, dispersion'), reshaped to fit the native prefix tra-.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/traffic (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).