transitive

Etymology

From Latin trānsitīvus, from trānsitus, from trāns (“across”) + itus, from eō (“to go”).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

transitive (not comparable)

1. Making a transit or passage.
   • (Can we date this quote?), 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.

2. Affected by transference of signification.
   • (Can we date this quote?), John Stuart Mill, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     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.

3. (grammar, of a verb) Taking an object or objects.

   Antonym: intransitive

   The English verb "to notice" is a transitive verb, because we say things like "She noticed a problem".

   • (Can we date this quote?), G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy:

     Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb.

4. (set theory, of a relation on a set) Having the property that if an element x is related to y and y is related to z, then x is necessarily related to z.

   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.

5. (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.
6. (graph theory, of a graph) Such that, for any two vertices there exists an automorphism which maps one to the other.

See also

• reflexive
• symmetric

References

• transitive in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

• revisitant

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʁɑ̃.zi.tiv/
• Rhymes: -iv
• Homophone: transitives

Adjective

transitive

1. feminine singular of transitif

Adjective

transitive

1. inflected form of transitiv

Adjective

transitive f pl

1. Feminine plural of adjective transitivo.

Anagrams

• intervista, intestarvi, intraviste, rinvestita, rinvitaste, strinatevi, vetrinista

Adjective

trānsitīve

1. vocative masculine singular of trānsitīvus