• traffick(archaic),traffique(obsolete)

FromMiddle Frenchtrafique,traffique(“traffic”), fromItaliantraffico(“traffic”) fromtrafficare(“to carry on trade”). Potentially fromVulgar Latin*trānsfrīcāre(“to rub across”); Klein instead suggests the Italian has ultimate origin inArabicتَفْرِيق(tafrīq,“distribution, dispersion”), reshaped to match the native prefixtra-(“trans-”).

The adjectival sense is possibly influenced byTagalogtrapik and follows a general trend in Philippine English to construct a noun from an adjective.^[1]

• enPR:trăf'ĭk,IPA^(key):/ˈtɹæfɪk/

• Audio(US):

  (file)

• Rhymes:-æfɪk

traffic (usuallyuncountable,pluraltraffics)

2. Movingpedestrians orvehicles, or theflux orpassage thereof.

   Thetraffic is slow during rush hour.

   • c.1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], “The Prologue”, in[…] Romeo and Juliet. […] (First Quarto), London:[…] Iohn Danter, published1597,→OCLC:

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

4. Thecommercialtransportation orexchange ofgoods, or the movement ofpassengers or people.
   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe],The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London:[…] W[illiam] Taylor […],→OCLC:

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

   • 1910,Emma Goldman, “The Traffic in Women”, inAnarchism and Other Essays‎^[1]:

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

   • 2007, John Darwin,After Tamerlane, Penguin, page12:

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

6. Theillegaltrade orexchange ofgoods, oftendrugs.

   Synonym:(more common)trafficking

   • 2018 January 9, Alfred W. McCoy, “How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan”, inThe Guardian‎^[2],→ISSN:

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

8. The exchange orflux ofinformation,messages ordata, as in a computer or telephonenetwork.
   • 1902, John Buchan,The Outgoing of the Tide:

     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 blacktraffic than one Alison Sempill, who bode at the Skerburnfoot.

   • 2013 July 26, Charles Arthur, “Porn sites get more internet traffic in UK than social networks or shopping”, inThe Guardian‎^[3],→ISSN:

     Internettraffic 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.

   1. (radio) OfCB radio, formal written messages relayed on behalf of others.
   2. (advertising) The amount of attention paid to a particular printed page etc., in a publication.
      • 1950,Advertising & Selling (volume 43, part 2, page 53)

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

10. Thecommodities of themarket.
    • 1716,John Gay,Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London‎^[4]:

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

traffic (third-person singular simple presenttraffics,present participletrafficking,simple past and past participletrafficked)

1. (intransitive) To pass goods andcommodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money; to buy or sell goods.

   Synonym:trade

2. (intransitive) To trademeanly ormercenarily; tobargain.
3. (transitive) To exchange in traffic; to effect by a bargain or for aconsideration.
   • 1912,The World's Wit and Humor, page176:

     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, andtraffic 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.

• sex-traffic
• sex trafficking
• trafficker
• trafficking

traffic (comparativemoretraffic,superlativemosttraffic)

1. (Philippines)Congested.

   It's supertraffic here in Manila.

• “traffic”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.