traffic

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The cars and other vehicles moving along a road.

   The traffic is very slow during rush hour.

2. 2
   noun

   The illegal trade in goods such as drugs.

   Police are trying to stop the drug traffic in the city.

3. 3
   verb

   To buy and sell something illegally.

   The gang was caught trafficking drugs across the border.

From Middle French trafique, traffique (“traffic”), from Italian traffico (“traffic”) from trafficare (“to carry on trade”). Potentially from Vulgar Latin *trānsfrīcāre (“to rub across”); Klein instead suggests the Italian has ultimate origin in Arabic تَفْرِيق (tafrīq, “distribution, dispersion”), reshaped to match the native prefix tra- (“trans-”). The adjectival sense is possibly influenced by Tagalog trapik and follows a general trend in Philippine English to construct a noun from an adjective.

Topics