traction
/ˈtrakʃ(ə)n
/noun [mass noun]
1The action of drawing or pulling something over a surface, especially a road or track: a primitive vehicle used in animal traction...
- Loss of animal traction resulted in decreased production intensity, as did loss of labor power through migration, conscription, and death.
- Most Romano-British farmsteads were mixed, dependent on animals for manure, traction, dairy products, wool, hides, and meat.
- To facilitate animal traction, migrants cut down big trees, cleared bamboo bushes, and uprooted stumps.
1.1Motive power provided to draw or pull something, especially on a railway: the changeover to diesel and electric traction...
- Mourning in anticipation, 71 railway enthusiasts took steam's eclipse by diesel and electric traction to be history's greatest betrayal.
- Pictures, diagrams, tables and models are used to explain the evolution of engines from steam through diesel to electric traction.
- It made little difference whether the rolling stock in question was for high or low-speed operation or whether it was made use of diesel or electric traction.
1.2Locomotives collectively: a pent-up demand for traction and rolling stock...
- Colin, a retired traction and rolling stock engineer, and his wife aim to complete more than 30,000 miles of their epic odyssey by train.
- The interactive museum would have featured all elements of steam technology from steam boats to steam traction and trains.
- It's pulled by a diesel engine today but there is a strong movement to reintroduce steam traction.
2The grip of a tyre on a road or a wheel on a rail: his car hit a patch of ice and lost traction...
- On a simple two-wheel drive car, traction control selects the wheel with the most grip in a loss-of-grip situation and gives it more power.
- Also standard are dual-stage driver and front-passenger airbags and traction control.
- Alloy wheels, traction control and a cassette player come as standard.
Synonyms
grip, friction, adhesion, purchase, resistance;
pull, haulage, propulsion, drag
3The extent to which an idea, product, etc. gains popularity or acceptance: analysts predicted that the technology would rapidly gain traction in the corporate mobile market if a film got a little traction, a wider release could be negotiated...
- The advocates of disengagement have yet to gain traction.
- Not only are introductions in order, you should also give the fresh acquaintances a little traction to get their friendship rolling merrily along.
- His approach has started to gain traction in Europe.
4 Medicine The application of a sustained pull on a limb or muscle, especially in order to maintain the position of a fractured bone or to correct a deformity: his leg is in traction...
- Dancers now jump higher, pirouette more times - more than the naked eye can count - and spend hours in traction to stretch their limbs and torsos a centimetre or two more.
- The new Hodgen splint held a limb in traction while a wound was dressed, a critical innovation on the battlefield.
- The procedure still requires a major surgery to insert the pins and rods to hold the bones in traction.
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting contraction, such as that of a muscle): from French, or from medieval Latin tractio(n-), from Latin trahere 'draw, pull'. Current senses date from the early 19th century.