traffic light
Noun
Meaning
A signalling device positioned at a road intersection or pedestrian crossing to indicate when it may be safe to drive, ride or walk, using a universal colour code.
(usually in the plural) A road intersection controlled by one or more such devices.
Turn left at the traffic lights and the hospital is on your right.
A colour code using the three signals of a traffic light (green, yellow/amber, and red) as a metaphor.
The Department of Health recommends that food packaging display the recommended daily intake with a traffic light system, for ease of understanding.
(philately) The coloured dots on stamp sheet margins printed with offset litho or photogravure methods, used by the printers to check colour accuracy.
traffic-light (plural traffic-lights)
Alternative spelling of traffic light
Alternative names
traffic-light
Synonyms
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
Examples
On a traffic light green means go and yellow means yield, but on a banana it's just the opposite. Green means hold on, yellow means go ahead, and red means where the hell did you get that banana at...
April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.
I had to calm down because a state trooper pulled up alongside me at a traffic light and began looking at me with that sort of casual disdain you often get when you give a dangerously stupid person a gun and a squad car.
The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.
And while we’re talking about apps with similar features, Yandex Maps has had traffic light indicators for at least a few years now, too — even before Apple showed off its own implementation.
Around 9:42 p.m., a Volkswagen Passat stopped at a traffic light in the 5700 block of Valley Road, when a Dodge Ram pickup truck struck the vehicle and another vehicle, a Honda Accord, from behind.