traffic

plural traffics · alternative traffick · alternative traffique

1. uncountableusuallyMoving pedestrians or vehicles, or the flux or passage thereof.

   The traffic is slow during rush hour.

   1 more example

   VVhoſe miſaduentures, piteous ouerthrovves, / (Through the continuing of their Fathers ſtrife, / And death-markt paſſage of their Parents rage) / Is novv the tvvo hovvres traffique of our Stage.

   c. 1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], “The Prologue”, in […] Romeo and Juliet. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, published 1597, →OCLC

   Synonyms: travel

2. uncountableusuallyThe commercial transportation or exchange of goods, or the movement of passengers or people.

   I had three large axes, and abundance of hatchets (for we carried the hatchets for traffic with the Indians).

   1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   To assume that the recent investigation of the white slave traffic (and, by the way, a very superficial investigation) has discovered anything new, is, to say the least, very foolish

   1910, Emma Goldman, “The Traffic in Women”, in Anarchism and Other Essays

   Its units of study are regions or oceans, long-distance trades [...], the traffic of cults and beliefs between cultures and continents.

   2007, John Darwin, After Tamerlane, Penguin, page 12

3. uncountableusuallyA flow of customers for a store or restaurant.

   Sales are down due to a decline in store traffic.

4. uncountableusuallyThe illegal trade or exchange of goods, often drugs.

   They, in turn, had long dominated the drug traffic in the area of north-east Afghanistan that they controlled during the Taliban years.

   2018 January 9, Alfred W. McCoy, “How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: trafficking

5. uncountableusuallyThe exchange or flux of information, messages or data, as in a computer or telephone network.

   The parish stank of idolatry, abominable rites were practiced in secret, and in all the bounds there was no one had a more evil name for the black traffic than one Alison Sempill, who bode at the Skerburnfoot.

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   1 more example

   Internet traffic to legal pornography sites in the UK comprised 8.5% of all "clicks" on web pages in June – exceeding those for shopping, news, business or social networks, according to new data obtained exclusively by the Guardian.

   2013 July 26, Charles Arthur, “Porn sites get more internet traffic in UK than social networks or shopping”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   1. uncountableusuallybroadcastingOf CB radio, formal written messages relayed on behalf of others.
   2. uncountableusuallyadvertisingThe amount of attention paid to a particular printed page etc., in a publication.

      Those fixed locations which are sold to advertisers become preferred according to the expected page traffic.

      1950, Advertising & Selling (volume 43, part 2, page 53)

6. uncountableusuallyThe commodities of the market.

   You'll see a draggled damsel / From Billingsgate her fishy traffic bear.

   1716, John Gay, Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London

present singular third person traffics · participle present trafficking · participle past trafficked · past trafficked · alternative traffick · alternative traffique

1. intransitiveTo pass goods and commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money; to buy or sell goods.

   Synonyms: trade

2. intransitiveTo trade meanly or mercenarily; to bargain.
3. transitiveTo exchange in traffic; to effect by a bargain or for a consideration.

   1 more example

   A Libyan longing took us, and we would have chosen, if we could, to bear a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful purchase.

   1912, The World's Wit and Humor, page 176

comparative more traffic · superlative most traffic · alternative traffick · alternative traffique

1. PhilippinesCongested.

   It’s super traffic here in Manila.