Translation
traffic
Word origin
An international word taken in whole, through French trafic and Italian traffico. The Italian verb trafficare is old and its own origin is genuinely disputed; the commercial sense of trade came first and the sense of vehicles moving about is a nineteenth-century extension.
- Origin
- Italian, via French
- Root
- traffico
- English cognates
- traffic, trafficker
Other proposed origins
- Most often traced to a Vulgar Latin transfricare, 'to rub across', on the image of goods passing from hand to hand. (transfricare)
- Others derive it from trans plus facere, 'to do across', that is to carry business from one place to another. (trans + facere)
Examples
.
The traffic in the town is terrible.
.
We waited a long time because of the heavy traffic.
.
The traffic stopped on the bridge.
The best false seam in this stretch of the vocabulary, and the most tempting one to fall for. Trafi is a real Esperanto verb meaning to hit a target, and in its everyday sense, to catch a train. -ik- is a real enough word-ending too, the one in , , , marking a field or discipline. Put them together and reads beautifully as "the art of catching trains" - which is charming, memorable, and completely wrong. - is one indivisible root that arrived from Italian by way of French, and it has no historical connection to whatsoever. If a seam is this pleasing, check it.
The word covers vehicle traffic in the road sense and traffic in the commercial sense of goods moving about. For the illegal kind, Esperanto prefers kontrabando or a compound like drogtrafiko. The related trafika o is a traffic jam, literally a blockage.
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trafiko: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "trafiko" (traffic): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 38.