Wiktionary

transverse

English

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Etymology

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Late Middle English, from Latin trānsversus (“turned across; going or lying across or crosswise”). Doublet of transversal.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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transverse (not comparable)

  1. Situated or lying across; side to side, relative to some defined "forward" direction; perpendicular or slanted relative to the "forward" direction; identified with movement across areas.
    Antonym: longitudinal
    • 1960 November, “New electric multiple-units for British Railways: Glasgow Suburban”, in Trains Illustrated, page 660:
      The units have transverse seats, two and three astride the passageway with single or double longitudinal seats alongside the two entrance vestibules in each car.
    • 2023 February 22, Paul Stephen, “TfL reveals first of new B23s for Docklands Light Railway”, in RAIL, number 977, page 12:
      Unlike the older trains, the new units have walk-through carriages and longitudinal rather than transverse seating.
  2. (anatomy) Made at right angles to the long axis of the body.
  3. (geometry) (of an intersection) Not tangent, so that a nondegenerate angle is formed between the two things intersecting. (For the general definition, see w:Transversality (mathematics)#Definition.)
  4. (obsolete) Not in direct line of descent; collateral.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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transverse (plural transverses)

  1. Anything that is transverse or athwart, such as a road or a ship's web frame.
  2. (geometry) The longer, or transverse, axis of an ellipse.

Translations

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Verb

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transverse (third-person singular simple present transverses, present participle transversing, simple past and past participle transversed) (transitive)

  1. To lie or run across; to cross.
  2. To traverse or thwart.
  3. To overturn.
    • 1702, Charles Leslie, The Case of the Regale and of the Pontificate Stated‎[1], page 226:
      And so long shall her censures, when justly passed, have their effect: how then can they be altered or transversed, suspended or superseded, by a temporal government, that must vanish and come to nothing?
  4. To alter or transform.
  5. (obsolete) To change from prose into verse, or from verse into prose.
    • 1671, George Villiers, The Rehearsal‎[3], published 1770, act 1, scene 1, page 12:
      Bayes: Why, thus, Sir; nothing so easy when understood; I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere, for that's all one, if there be any wit in't, as there is no book but has some, I transverse it; that is, if it be prose, put it into verse, (but that takes up some time) and if it be verse, put it into prose.

References

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French

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Adjective

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transverse (plural transverses)

  1. transverse

Further reading

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Latin

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Etymology 1

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From trānsversus (“turned across”) ‎ -ē (“-ly”, adverbial suffix).

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Adverb

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trānsversē (comparative trānsversius, superlative trānsversissimē)

  1. crosswise, transversely, obliquely
    Synonym: trānsversim

Etymology 2

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See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Pronunciation

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Participle

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trānsverse

  1. vocative masculine singular of trānsversus

References

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