traffic cop
noun
: a police officer who directs traffic or gives fines to people who break traffic laws
Examples of traffic cop in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The blockading country's navy must essentially pull over ships, like a traffic cop at sea.
—
Scott Neuman, NPR, 16 Apr. 2026
The show began with a pre-recorded segment echoing Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho that featured Sam Elliott as an off-putting traffic cop.
—Wesley Stenzel, Entertainment Weekly, 12 Apr. 2026
The company twisted the knife with Super Bowl ads mocking OpenAI’s slop, and Altman fired back, sniping that Anthropic wanted to be the traffic cop of AI.
—Joe Hagan, Vanity Fair, 18 Mar. 2026
The shriek of a whistle, once the quaint signal of a traffic cop or coach ending soccer practice is now, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the witnessing of another human-rights atrocity.
—Dobby Gibson, Literary Hub, 26 Jan. 2026
Because the Dectravalve kept temperatures low and uniform—and the battery management system didn’t need to play energy traffic cop and slow charging to a crawl to avoid overheating—charging time was cut by roughly 60 percent.
—IEEE Spectrum, 17 Dec. 2025
As usual, the Charlotte Hornets coach is dealing with a fair share of them up and down the roster, and a traffic cop is almost necessary to navigate the constant comings and goings.
—Roderick Boone, Charlotte Observer, 3 Dec. 2025
To prevent the literal crossing of signals, a traffic cop (the government) needs to allocate and regulate the space.
—Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 30 Sep. 2025
In a sense, OMLET would be like a space-traffic cop, marshaling the orbits of satellites and debris.
—Keith Cooper, Space.com, 15 Sep. 2025
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Scott Neuman, NPR, 16 Apr. 2026
The show began with a pre-recorded segment echoing Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho that featured Sam Elliott as an off-putting traffic cop.
—Wesley Stenzel, Entertainment Weekly, 12 Apr. 2026
The company twisted the knife with Super Bowl ads mocking OpenAI’s slop, and Altman fired back, sniping that Anthropic wanted to be the traffic cop of AI.
—Joe Hagan, Vanity Fair, 18 Mar. 2026
The shriek of a whistle, once the quaint signal of a traffic cop or coach ending soccer practice is now, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the witnessing of another human-rights atrocity.
—Dobby Gibson, Literary Hub, 26 Jan. 2026
Because the Dectravalve kept temperatures low and uniform—and the battery management system didn’t need to play energy traffic cop and slow charging to a crawl to avoid overheating—charging time was cut by roughly 60 percent.
—IEEE Spectrum, 17 Dec. 2025
As usual, the Charlotte Hornets coach is dealing with a fair share of them up and down the roster, and a traffic cop is almost necessary to navigate the constant comings and goings.
—Roderick Boone, Charlotte Observer, 3 Dec. 2025
To prevent the literal crossing of signals, a traffic cop (the government) needs to allocate and regulate the space.
—Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 30 Sep. 2025
In a sense, OMLET would be like a space-traffic cop, marshaling the orbits of satellites and debris.
—Keith Cooper, Space.com, 15 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Traffic cop.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/traffic%20cop. Accessed 23 Apr. 2026.
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