transitive

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Contents

[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

Latin trans (“‘across’”) + itus, from eo (“‘to go’”)

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Adjective

transitive (not comparable)

Positive
transitive

Comparative
not comparable

Superlative
none (absolute)
  1. Making a transit or passage.
    • For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet
  2. Affected by transference of signification.
    • By far the greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words depend on casual and unaccountable caprices of the feelings or the fancy. - John Stuart Mill
  3. (grammar): Of a verb, that takes an object or objects. (compare with: intransitive.)
    • I read the book. (read is a transitive verb)
    • I read. (read is an intransitive verb)
    • Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. — G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
  4. (set theory): Of a relation R on a set S, such that if xRy and yRz, then xRz for all members x, y and z of S (that is, if the relation applies from one element to a second, and from the second to a third, then it also applies from the first element to the third).
    "Is an ancestor of" is a transitive relation.

[edit] Antonyms

[edit] Translations

making a transit or passage
affected by transference of signification
in grammar: of a verb, that takes an object or objects
in set theory

[edit] Derived terms

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] French

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Adjective

transitive f.

  1. Feminine form of transitif.

[edit] Italian

[edit] Adjective

transitive pl.

  1. Feminine form of transitivo.
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