Transitive Definition

transitive

English

Etymology

From Latin transitivus, from transitus, from trans (“across”) + itus, from eo (“to go”)

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

transitive (not comparable)

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)

   • G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

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

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.

Antonyms

• (making a transit or passage):
• (affected by transference of signification):
• (grammar): intransitive
• (set theory): intransitive, nontransitive

Derived terms

• ditransitive
• monotransitive
• complex transitive
• transitively
• transitiveness
• transitive verb

See also

• reflexive
• symmetric

References

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

French

Pronunciation

• IPA: /tʁɑ̃.zi.tiv/, X-SAMPA: /tRA~.zi.tiv/
• Rhymes: -iv
• Homophone: transitives

Adjective

transitive f.

1. feminine form of transitif

Italian

Adjective

transitive pl.

1. feminine form of transitivo

Anagrams

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

Latin

Adjective

transitīve

1. vocative masculine singular of transitīvus

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