traffic light

noun

1. a set of electrically operated signal lights used to direct or control traffic at intersections.

traffic light

noun

1. one of a set of coloured lights placed at crossroads, junctions, etc, to control the flow of traffic. A red light indicates that traffic must stop and a green light that it may go: usually an amber warning light is added between the red and the green

Word History and Origins

Origin of traffic light¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

So I’m clicking the stupid images with the traffic lights, and I’m clicking the stupid images with the crosswalks.

From Washington Post

Pelino is unsure when more ambitious projects, like using machine learning to optimize traffic lights, will be reinstated.

From Fortune

Take, for example, “smart city” companies, which promise that local governments will be able to ease congestion by monitoring cars in real time and adjusting the timing of traffic lights.

From MIT Technology Review

Coordinating all these programmed traffic lights to keep vehicles moving is a problem.

From Quanta Magazine

Traffic-light systems are normally timed and programmed in a way that’s supposed to be efficient, but then the precise number of cars stopped by each traffic light varies constantly.

From Quanta Magazine

A detective drives through dark city streets and stops at a traffic light.

From The Daily Beast

A partial solution, perhaps, would be to adopt the kind of traffic light food labeling required in Britain.

From The Daily Beast

At the first traffic light, one woman left her car and approached the other, perhaps to end the confrontation.

From The Daily Beast

Dorner allegedly ambushed the two cops as they were stopped at a traffic light.

From The Daily Beast

Every car, as we sailed by, stalled and every traffic light we passed either turned three colors or blinked out completely.

From Project Gutenberg

I even knocked out every red neon sign within two blocks of a traffic light.

From Project Gutenberg

I could just pick out the dogleg at Connors, and imagined I could see the traffic light at Chalmers.

From Project Gutenberg

He followed us from the box down the steps of the post office to the traffic light.

From Project Gutenberg

It was like the change of a traffic light from green to red.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• red light
• stoplight
• traffic control
• yellow light