transitive
English Edit
Etymology Edit
From Latin trānsitīvus, from trānsitus, from trāns (“across”) + itus, from eō (“to go”).
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
transitive (not comparable)
- Making a transit or passage.
- 1841-1843, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet:
- 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.
- Affected by transference of signification.
- 1843, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive:
- 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.
- (grammar, of a verb) Taking a direct object or objects.
- Antonym: intransitive
- The English verb "to notice" is a transitive verb, because we say things like "She noticed a problem".
- 1908, G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy:
- Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb.
- (set theory, of a relation on a set) Having the property that if an element a is related to b and b is related to c, then a is necessarily related to c.
- Antonyms: intransitive, nontransitive
- "Is an ancestor of" is a transitive relation: if Alice is an ancestor of Bob, and Bob is an ancestor of Carol, then Alice is an ancestor of Carol.
- (algebra, of a group action) Such that, for any two elements of the acted-upon set, some group element maps the first to the second.
- (graph theory, of a graph) Such that, for any two vertices there exists an automorphism which maps one to the other.
Derived terms Edit
Translations Edit
making a transit or passage
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affected by transference of signification
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grammar, of a verb: taking an object or objects
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set theory, of a relation on a set
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of a group action
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of a graph
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See also Edit
Noun Edit
transitive (plural transitives)
- (grammar) A transitive verb.
- 2011, Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, The Syntax of Romanian: Comparative Studies in Romance, page 136:
- This means that subcategorization properties do not allow us to distinguish between transitives and intransitives (both types of verbs are allowed, but not obliged, to take a direct object).
References Edit
- “transitive”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
Anagrams Edit
French Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
transitive
German Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Audio (file)
Adjective Edit
transitive
- inflection of transitiv:
Italian Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
transitive f pl
Anagrams Edit
Latin Edit
Adjective Edit
trānsitīve