traffic jam
35
1.0
- noun
- /ˈtræfɪk dʒæm/
:
atasco
- The reduction of traffic jams will make life much easier for security services.
- phantom traffic jam
Similarly, if you are caught in a traffic jam, you cannot move.
- Similarly, if you are caught in a traffic jam, you cannot move.
- So you can add gas to your car, but if there is a traffic jam, you're not going anywhere.
- So I get on and I'm like, Oh my God, it is a parking lot like Cairo kind of traffic jam.
- Floods, earthquakes, traffic jams, market crashes, and of course aging.
- So we're already he's pre imagining the traffic jam we'll be in if we hit a traffic jam.
- Our job is not to imagine the car, it's to imagine the traffic jam.
- So drove from North London, Acton into driving into Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, just just a traffic jam.
- On the way back from that we there is a large traffic jam near a place called Avonmouth and there's big bridge and there was a traffic jam before that.
Examples
-
Within minutes, they got stuck in a traffic jam on the coastal road.
Fiction book (1998) -
We sat in a massive traffic jam under an off-ramp.
Fiction book (1996) -
Well, we could use a hand getting out of this traffic jam.
-
Similarly, if you are caught in a traffic jam, you cannot move.
-
I'm in a traffic jam here.
-
However, the only nightmare of the evening was the traffic jam for those leaving the game.
Blog text (6) -
My sister and I were sitting in the back of the 'Cuda in a traffic jam.
Fiction book (2001) -
Today, the average American spends about a week a year stuck in traffic jams, and that's a huge waste of time and resources.
-
I get my first glimpse of Stonehenge while mired in a five-mile traffic jam.
Academic text (2003) -
After an hour of waiting, we were finally moving again in the traffic jam on the highway.
Synonyms
76
2.7
A crowd of people or vehicles that blocks movement
37
3.4
Too many people or vehicles in one place that slow movement
19
4.6
A complete traffic jam that stops vehicles moving in any direction
7
4.2
Many things, like cars or papers, gather in one place and cause delay
1
4.4
A time when many cars move very slowly and cause long delays
1
2.1
A time when cars and other vehicles move slowly and sometimes stop because of heavy traffic or an accident
1
3.8
Very bad traffic that makes travel slow and hard
A traffic jam where cars block each other and cannot move
A long line of vehicles stopped or moving very slowly on a road
Very slow, annoying traffic that makes you late
How Congested
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'traffic' (flow of vehicles) with 'jam' (a crowding or blockage); a B1 learner who knows both senses would infer a situation where vehicles are stuck or moving slowly. This compositional pattern is common and found in many languages, making the expression immediately comprehensible in context.
Etymology
Traffic jam may come from the picture of cars all squeezed together like jam in a jar: traffic means moving vehicles and jam once meant a tight crowd or blockage. So, it now means many vehicles are 'stuck' or 'moving very slowly'.