A cork and a traffic jam: פְּקָק

פְּקָק

pkak, a cork or stopper, and a traffic jam.

The root פ־ק־ק means to plug or stop up. The noun goes back to Talmudic and Midrashic Hebrew, where it was already a stopper, something that seals an opening.¹

Spoken Hebrew stretched the same idea onto the road. A traffic jam is a פְּקָק תְּנוּעָה (pkak tnu’a), a traffic plug, and everyone just says פְּקָק.² The road is corked shut, same as the bottle.

How Israelis use it today:

• Stuck in trafficהִיא תְּקוּעָה בַּפְּקָק כְּבָר חֲצִי שָׁעָה.She’s been stuck in traffic for half an hour already.hi tku’a ba-pkak kvar chatsi sha’a
• The corkהוּא לֹא הִצְלִיחַ לְהוֹצִיא אֶת הַפְּקָק מֵהַבַּקְבּוּק.He couldn’t get the cork out of the bottle.hu lo hitsli’ach lehotsi et ha-pkak me-ha-bakbuk
• One giant jamבַּבֹּקֶר הָיָה פְּקָק אֶחָד עָנָק.This morning there was one giant traffic jam.ba-boker haya pkak echad anak
• Checking the roadאֵיפֹה אַתָּה? יֵשׁ פְּקָק בַּדֶּרֶךְ?Where are you? Is there traffic on the way? (to a man)eifo ata? yesh pkak ba-derech?
• Handy extrasחוֹלֵץ פְּקָקִים · פְּקָקֵי אֹזְנַיִםcorkscrew · earplugscholets pkakim · pkakei oznayim

1. Hebrew Wiktionary, פקק: origin in Talmudic and Midrashic literature.
2. Rav-Milim, entry פְּקָק: “a common spoken shortening of פְּקָק תְּנוּעָה”.