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Traffic vs Roundabout - What's the difference?

traffic | roundabout |

As nouns the difference between traffic and roundabout

is that traffic is pedestrians or vehicles on roads, or the flux or passage thereof while roundabout is (chiefly|uk|new zealand|and|australia) a road junction at which traffic streams circularly around a central island.

As a verb traffic

is 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.

As a adjective roundabout is

indirect, circuitous, or circumlocutionary.

traffic

Alternative forms

* traffick

Noun

(-)
  • Pedestrians or vehicles on roads, or the flux or passage thereof.
  • Traffic is slow at rush hour.
  • Commercial transportation or exchange of goods, or the movement of passengers or people.
  • * 1719 , :
  • I had three large axes, and abundance of hatchets (for we carried the hatchets for traffic with the Indians).
  • * 2007 , John Darwin, After Tamerlane , Penguin 2008, p. 12:
  • It's units of study are regions or oceans, long-distance trades [...], the traffic of cults and beliefs between cultures and continents.
  • Illegal trade or exchange of goods, often drugs.
  • Exchange or flux of information, messages or data, as in a computer or telephone network.
  • Commodities of the market.
  • * John Gay
  • You'll see a draggled damsel / From Billingsgate her fishy traffic bear.

    Derived terms

    * traffic boy * traffic jam

    Verb

    (traffick)
  • 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.
  • To trade meanly or mercenarily; to bargain.
  • To exchange in traffic; to effect by a bargain or for a consideration.
  • References

    *

    roundabout

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Indirect, circuitous, or circumlocutionary.
  • * 1896 , , From Whose Bourne , ch. 9:
  • [S]he fled, running like a deer, doubling and turning through alleys and back streets until by a very roundabout road she reached her own room.
  • * 1921 , , Indiscretions of Archie , ch. 17:
  • "Really, Bill, I think your best plan would be to go straight to father and tell him the whole thing.—You don't want him to hear about it in a roundabout way."
  • * 2001 Dec. 3, , " Rather Reports Another War," New York Times (retrieved 3 April 2014):
  • Mr. Rather flew to the area in a roundabout fashion, first landing in Bahrain, from there flying to Islamabad and then heading to Kabul by land.
  • * 2011 , Golgotha Press (ed.), 50 Classic Philosophy Books , ISBN 9781610425957, (Google preview):
  • Descartes is compelled to fall back upon a curious roundabout argument to prove that there is a world. He must first prove that God exists, and then argue that God would not deceive us into thinking that it exists when it does not.
  • Encircling; enveloping; comprehensive.
  • * 1706 , , Of the Conduct of the Understanding , item 3.3:
  • The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call a large, sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question.

    Derived terms

    * roundaboutly

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (chiefly, UK, New Zealand, and, Australia) A road junction at which traffic streams circularly around a central island
  • (chiefly, British) A children's play apparatus, often found in parks, which rotates around a central axis when pushed.
  • A fairground carousel.
  • A detour
  • A short, close-fitting coat or jacket worn by men or boys, especially in the 19th century.
  • Derived terms

    * mini-roundabout

    Synonyms

    * (road junction) traffic circle, rotary

    See also

    * swings and roundabouts