How to Use traffic in a Sentence

traffic

1 of 2 noun
Definition of trafficnext
Synonyms for trafficnext
  • Traffic is backed up to the bridge.
  • Let's leave early to avoid rush hour traffic.
  • Airlines saw a decrease in passenger traffic this year.
  • Barge traffic was halted because of flooding.
  • As the truck passed by the couple, the load struck them, causing a traffic crash.
    — David Chiu, Peoplemag, 19 Oct. 2023
  • There wasn’t much traffic, and the driver kept up a steady pace.
    — Shuang Xuetao, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023
  • Harden then lost control of his Equinox and the car traveled to the left across all lanes of traffic.
    — The Enquirer, 14 Mar. 2024
  • Cochran had been closed during the search but that street has since been reopened to traffic.
    — David K. Li, NBC News, 2 June 2023
  • The cameras have been the city’s main method of traffic enforcement for years and can issue fines up to $500.
    — Luz Lazo, Washington Post, 24 Nov. 2023
  • The tourism surge has led to a housing crisis, a water shortage and a traffic mess.
    — Jack Herrera, Los Angeles Times, 19 Oct. 2023
  • There was no word on why police pulled Cure over or what prompted the traffic check.
    — Melissa Noel, Essence, 20 Oct. 2023
  • The company wanted to boost traffic in the third and fourth quarters of the year, when its business tends to slow down.
    — Marley Jay, NBC News, 30 Nov. 2023
  • Street takeovers are when people stop traffic to make way for vehicles to do burnouts and donuts on the road.
    — Ken Brown, The Enquirer, 1 Jan. 2024
  • During Rock the Block, one lane east and one west will remain open to traffic on Mayfield Road.
    — cleveland, 11 Aug. 2023
  • If you’re headed to Charleston in the spring, just be prepared for crowds, traffic, lines, and hard-to-find parking.
    — Lydia Mansel, Travel + Leisure, 31 May 2023
  • Even without cars, there was plenty of traffic on the freeway.
    — Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 31 Oct. 2023
  • The man’s death marks the 44th traffic fatality in Portland so far this year.
    — Bslovic, oregonlive, 30 July 2023
  • Two-wheeled traffic in Guangzhou in general seemed to present a challenge for the system.
    — Mark Andrews, WIRED, 13 Mar. 2024
  • The canal also closed at the beginning of March, causing a backup of traffic.
    — Daniel Kool, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Apr. 2023
  • The company said the vehicle stopped, but then pulled over to move out of traffic, dragging the woman 20 feet along the road.
    — Morgan Meaker, WIRED, 29 Nov. 2023
  • That's good news for fleets, for truck drivers, and for residents in areas with lots of truck traffic.
    — Jonathon Ramsey, Car and Driver, 13 May 2023
  • While there were already a mix of barriers installed between the bike and traffic lanes, there was still space for cars to park.
    — Clio Chang, Curbed, 27 Oct. 2023
  • Once the traffic is shifted onto the new bridge, northbound drivers will make a slight left at Broadway and Fifth Street.
    — Robert A. Cronkleton, Kansas City Star, 29 Jan. 2024
  • Early morning on-time performance is all thanks to the thin air traffic.
    — Cailey Rizzo, Travel + Leisure, 20 Apr. 2023
  • An officer on a traffic stop in the area witnessed the horse trotting through the soccer field at Gardenway and Grange.
    — Claire Reid, Journal Sentinel, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Toward her car, where traffic was already piled up, or away from that mayhem?
    — Roger Cohen Avishag Shaar-Yashuv, New York Times, 15 Oct. 2023
  • The crash marked the ninth traffic fatality this year on San Jose streets — six of which have involved pedestrians.
    — Jakob Rodgers, The Mercury News, 21 Feb. 2024
  • Leave plenty of distance between you and the vehicle in front of you to account for sudden stops or changes in the traffic pattern.
    — Star-Telegram Bot, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 26 Jan. 2024
  • An analysis of traffic patterns from that year suggests the worst of the traffic – on interstates and rural back roads alike – will kick off after the eclipse ends and everyone tries to leave all at once.
    — Christopher Cann, USA TODAY, 8 Apr. 2024
  • The long delays are believed to be due in part to ongoing construction projects in Tijuana that have created traffic bottlenecks entering the city.
    — Alexandra Mendoza, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Apr. 2024
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traffic

2 of 2 verb
  • David’s death, at the age of 37, shows the extremes of the cruelties trafficked women face.
    — Washington Post, 12 Dec. 2019
  • And yet, the world does not traffic in moral absolutes.
    — Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 16 Aug. 2021
  • Still, some who claimed they were trafficked on the site sought civil penalties.
    — Richard Ruelas, USA TODAY, 2 Aug. 2023
  • There are many brokerage firms that traffic in fix-to-float bonds.
    — Marilyn Cohen, Forbes, 20 Sep. 2021
  • Court records state Fessler is charged with trafficking methamphetamine, a felony.
    — Quinlan Bentley, The Enquirer, 4 Mar. 2023
  • But the nighttime run on April 5 didn’t involve Keosavang, and the wildlife being trafficked was still very much alive.
    — Paul Kvinta, Outside Online, 12 Nov. 2019
  • The Eiffel Tower is one of the most recognizable and well-trafficked monuments in the world.
    — Ben Carlson, Fortune, 14 Jan. 2020
  • Beyond telling politicians who traffic in racist attacks to go to the devil, how should Democrats deal with crime?
    — Paul Begala, CNN, 19 Oct. 2022
  • The defense comes from a law meant to protect trafficking victims.
    — Salvador Hernandez, Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2023
  • Or, foster kids who get trafficked will be used by the traffickers to traffic their friends.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Jan. 2022
  • Living in the shadows There are few ways out for trafficking victims like Chae-ran.
    — Jessie Yeung, CNN, 8 Mar. 2024
  • In the end, in the very end, this ugly story is about one thing: simple hate, and how a Black man, of all people, should know better than to traffic it.
    — Mike Freeman, USA TODAY, 26 Oct. 2022
  • Many people in the region now long for the early 1990s, when just one family trafficked drugs through the region, and the state was largely at peace.
    — Arkansas Online, 1 Dec. 2019
  • Basically, the process of trafficking a siskin may start with a trapper in a rural area.
    — Joshua Rapp Learn, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Apr. 2020
  • They’re often procured through straw men in states with lax gun laws and then trafficked illegally to the country.
    — Widlore Mérancourt, Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2023
  • That theory focused on the false claim that a child trafficking ring was being run out of the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant.
    — Ben Goggin, NBC News, 28 Nov. 2023
  • And with much of the drugs being trafficked in by Mexican drug cartels, the quality varies widely.
    — Danny Hermosillo, Houston Chronicle, 4 Feb. 2020
  • The length of time Mearan was allegedly able to traffic women without being caught shocks him.
    — Cameron Knight, The Enquirer, 27 Nov. 2020
  • According to Spencer, police have not found any evidence that Noel is dead or has been trafficked.
    — Jamie Landers, Dallas News, 27 Mar. 2023
  • In a district that has long been controlled or contested by the Taliban, the airbase sits amid a major drug and arms trafficking route.
    — Brett Murphy, USA Today, 30 Dec. 2019
  • Unlike many sportswriters, who tend to traffic in the immediate (and obvious), Lewis takes the long view.
    — Steve Almond, Los Angeles Times, 15 Aug. 2023
  • In a third case, the Times reported, a source told U.S. agents that trafficking groups had videos of the president’s sons receiving drug money.
    — Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post, 23 Feb. 2024
  • Snacks will be available, and officers with the Pine Bluff Police Department will be on hand to help will traffic control.
    — Arkansas Online, 5 Sep. 2020
  • Harris is in the Mobile Metro Jail, charged with trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl.
    — Warren Kulo | [email protected], al, 29 Mar. 2023
  • The story of the missing girl turning up on the base drew public attention when the girl’s aunt posted a TikTok video alleging the girl had been trafficked.
    — Teri Figueroa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 Aug. 2023
  • Combs also is charged with maintaining a drug house and with carrying a firearm in relation to a drug-trafficking crime.
    — Kevin Grasha, Cincinnati.com, 14 Nov. 2019
  • Meanwhile, kids are still being trafficked — on streets, in cheap hotels, on the internet, in our own neighborhoods.
    — Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 16 Feb. 2024
  • The higher the drug weight, the more severe the penalties become — for example, an extra 25 years of prison time can be imposed for trafficking more than 80 kilograms.
    — Christopher Tang and Thomas Choi, Twin Cities, 13 Jan. 2024
  • McAnuff’s production does not traffic in such subtleties.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2024
  • Hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked into online criminality across the region, according to a United Nations report last year.
    — Kathleen Magramo, CNN, 28 Mar. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'traffic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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