In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.
TRAFFIC
dealings, traffic
(noun) social or verbal interchange (usually followed by ‘with’)
traffic
(noun) buying and selling; especially illicit trade
traffic
(noun) the amount of activity over a communication system during a given period of time; “heavy traffic overloaded the trunk lines”; “traffic on the internet is lightest during the night”
traffic
(noun) the aggregation of things (pedestrians or vehicles) coming and going in a particular locality during a specified period of time
traffic
(verb) trade or deal a commodity; “They trafficked with us for gold”
traffic
(verb) deal illegally; “traffic drugs”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
traffic (usually uncountable, plural traffics)
Pedestrians or vehicles on roads, or the flux or passage thereof.
Commercial transportation or exchange of goods, or the movement of passengers or people.
Illegal trade or exchange of goods, often drugs.
Exchange or flux of information, messages or data, as in a computer or telephone network.
In CB radio, formal written messages relayed on behalf of others.
Commodities of the market.
Verb
traffic (third-person singular simple present traffics, present participle trafficking, simple past and past participle trafficked)
(intransitive) To pass goods and commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money; to buy or sell goods
Synonym: trade
(intransitive) To trade meanly or mercenarily; to bargain.
(transitive) To exchange in traffic; to effect by a bargain or for a consideration.
Source: Wiktionary
Traf"fic, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Trafficked; p. pr. & vb. n. Trafficking.] Etym: [F. trafiquer; cf. It. trafficare, Sp. traficar, trafagar, Pg. traficar, trafegar, trafeguear, LL. traficare; of uncertain origin, perhaps fr. L. trans across, over + -ficare to make (see -fy, and cf. G. übermachen to transmit, send over, e. g., money, wares); or cf. Pg. trasfegar to pour out from one vessel into another, OPg. also, to traffic, perhaps fr. (assumed) LL. vicare to exchange, from L. vicis change (cf. Vicar).]
1. To pass goods and commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money; to buy or sell goods; to barter; to trade.
2. To trade meanly or mercenarily; to bargain.
Traf"fic, v. t.
Definition: To exchange in traffic; to effect by a bargain or for a consideration.
Traf"fic, n. Etym: [Cf. F. trafic, It. traffico, Sp. tráfico, tráfago, Pg. tráfego, LL. traficum, trafica. See Traffic, v.]
1. Commerce, either by barter or by buying and selling; interchange of goods and commodities; trade. A merchant of great traffic through the world. Shak. The traffic in honors, places, and pardons. Macaulay.
Note: This word, like trade, comprehends every species of dealing in the exchange or passing of goods or merchandise from hand to hand for an equivalent, unless the business of relating may be excepted. It signifies appropriately foreign trade, but is not limited to that.
2. Commodities of the market. [R.] You 'll see a draggled damsel From Billingsgate her fishy traffic bear. Gay.
3. The business done upon a railway, steamboat line, etc., with reference to the number of passengers or the amount of freight carried. Traffic return, a periodical statement of the receipts for goods and passengers, as on a railway line.
– Traffic taker, a computer of the returns of traffic on a railway, steamboat line, etc.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
22 January 2025
MEGALITH
(noun) memorial consisting of a very large stone forming part of a prehistoric structure (especially in western Europe)
Coffee Trivia
