- Traffic has been parking lot for the last three hours.
parking lot
adjective; zero derivation
Not moving at all (used to describe road traffic). This is a good example of metaphor. Cars do not move when they are sitting in a parking lot, so any situation where there are a large number of cars sitting still in one place has come to be a parking lot in the mind of the speaker. Probable reason used: Descriptive imagery of the amount of traffic.
Etymology : From the noun parking lot, an area where cars are placed when not being driven
Source : driver on telephone during heavy traffic
Last modified: 10 June 2008