English

Etymology

Latin trans across + itus , from eo, to go Duncan

Adjective

transitive (no comparative or superlative)

1. Making a transit or passage.

   Quotations

   • 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.

   Quotations

   • 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. - Stewart

3. (grammar) Of a verb, that takes an object or objects.

   In "I read the book", "read" is a transitive verb.

   Quotations

   • Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. - G. K. Chesterton , Orthodoxy

4. (mathematics) 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 symmetric relation.

Antonyms

• (making a transit or passage):
• (affected by transference of signification):
• (grammar): intransitive
• (mathematics): intransitive, non-transitive

Translations

making a transit or passage

affected by transference of signification

grammar: of a verb, that takes an object or objects

mathematics: of a relation

Translations to be checked

The translations below need to be checked by native speakers and inserted into the appropriate table(s) above, removing any numbers. Any numbering associating translations with definitions is unreliable.

• Dutch: transitief (4) overdrachtelijk (2, 3)
• Finnish: transitiivinen (3)
• French: transitif (3, 4)
• German: transitiv (3,4)

Derived terms

• ditransitive
• transitively
• transitiveness
• transitive verb

See also

• reflexive
• symmetric