Definition of transitive
Etymology
Latin trans ("across") + itus, from eo ("to go")
Pronunciation
Adjective
transitive (not comparable)
- 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
- 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
- (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)
Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. - G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
- (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
References:
- Wiktionary. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
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