different between traffic vs conversation

English

Alternative forms

• traffick

Etymology

From Middle French trafique, traffique (“traffic”), from Italian traffico (“traffic”) from trafficare (“to carry on trade”). Potentially from Vulgar Latin *tr?nsfr?c?re (“to rub across”); Klein instead suggests the Italian has ultimate origin in Arabic ????????? (tafr?q, “distribution, dispersion”), reshaped to match the native prefix tra- (“trans-”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: tr?f'?k, IPA^(key): /?t?æf?k/
• Rhymes: -æf?k

Noun

traffic (usually uncountable, plural traffics)

1. Moving pedestrians or vehicles, or the flux or passage thereof.

2. Commercial transportation or exchange of goods, or the movement of passengers or people.
3. Illegal trade or exchange of goods, often drugs.
4. Exchange or flux of information, messages or data, as in a computer or telephone network.
   1. In CB radio, formal written messages relayed on behalf of others.
   2. (advertising) The amount of attention paid to a particular printed page etc. in a publication.
      • 1950, Advertising & Selling (volume 43, part 2, page 53)

        Those fixed locations which are sold to advertisers become preferred according to the expected page traffic.

5. Commodities of the market.

   • You'll see a draggled damsel / From Billingsgate her fishy traffic bear.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

traffic (third-person singular simple present traffics, present participle trafficking, simple past and past participle trafficked)

1. (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

2. (intransitive) To trade meanly or mercenarily; to bargain.
3. (transitive) To exchange in traffic; to effect by a bargain or for a consideration.

Derived terms

• trafficker
• trafficking

Translations

References

• traffic in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

English

Etymology

From Middle English conversacioun, from French conversation, from Latin convers?ti?nem, accusative singular of convers?ti? (“conversation”), from conversor (“abide, keep company with”).Morphologically converse +? -ation

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?n.v??se?.??n/, [?k???.v??se?.?n?]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k?n.v???se?.??n/, [?k???.v??se?.?n?]
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

conversation (countable and uncountable, plural conversations)

1. Expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking. [from 16th c.]

   Synonyms: banter, chat, chinwag, dialogue, discussion, interlocution, powwow, table talk

   • 1699, William Temple, Heads designed for an essay on conversations

     Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.
2. (fencing) The back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout.
3. (computing, networking) The protocol-based interaction between systems processing a transaction. [from 20th c.]
4. (obsolete) Interaction; commerce or intercourse with other people; dealing with others. [14th-18th c.]
5. (archaic) Behaviour, the way one conducts oneself; a person's way of life. [from 14th c.]
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Letter 27:

     I have desired him to inquire after Lovelace's life and conversation in town.

6. (obsolete) Sexual intercourse. [16th-19th c.]

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:copulation

   • 1723, Charles Walker, Memoirs of the Life of Sally Salisbury:

     Ariadne […] quitted her Lover Theseus, for the tumultuous Conversation of Bacchus.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 333:

     Our travellers had happened to take up their residence at a house of exceeding good repute, whither Irish ladies of strict virtue, and many northern lasses of the same predicament, were accustomed to resort in their way to Bath. The landlady therefore would by no means have admitted any conversation of a disreputable kind to pass under her roof. Indeed, so foul and contagious are all such proceedings, that they contaminate the very innocent scenes where they are committed, and give the name of a bad house, or of a house of ill repute, to all those where they are suffered to be carried on.

7. (obsolete) Engagement with a specific subject, idea, field of study etc. [16th–18th c.]

   Synonyms: understanding, familiarity

   • 1570, John Dee, in H. Billingsley (trans.) Euclid, Elements of Geometry, Preface:

     So grosse is our conuersation, and dull is our apprehension: while mortall Sense, in vs, ruleth the common wealth of our litle world.

Usage notes

• To make conversation means to start a conversation with someone with no other aim than to talk and break the silence.
• To have a conversation, and to hold a conversation, both mean to converse.
• See Appendix:Collocations of do, have, make, and take

Derived terms

• conversational
• conversation piece
• make conversation

Related terms

• converse
• conversant

Translations

Verb

conversation (third-person singular simple present conversations, present participle conversationing, simple past and past participle conversationed)

1. (nonstandard, transitive, intransitive) To engage in conversation (with).
   • 1983, James Frederick Mason, Hélène Joséphine Harvitt, The French review

     Gone now are the "high-minded" style, the "adapted from literature" feel, the voice-over narration, and the abstract conversationing about ideas, values...

Anagrams

• conservation, nanovortices

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin convers?ti? (“conversation”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??.v??.sa.sj??/
• Homophone: conversations
• Hyphenation: con?ver?sa?tion

Noun

conversation f (plural conversations)

1. conversation

Synonyms

• bavardage
• causerie
• dialogue
• discussion

Hypernyms

• communication

Hyponyms

• aparté
• interview

Derived terms

• avoir de la conversation
• faire la conversation
• conversationnel

Further reading

• “conversation” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• conservation