transit

American  

[tran-zit, -sit] / ˈtræn zɪt, -sɪt /

noun

transits plural

1. the act or fact of passing across or through; passage from one place to another.

   The area continues to be affected by the transit of illegal drugs bound for major cities.

2. conveyance or transportation of people or goods from one place to another, especially local public transportation.

   Improving city transit is a high priority for the new mayor.

3. a transition or change.

   The transit of autumn to winter saw woodpecker season in full swing and Canada geese on the move.

4. Astronomy.

   1. the passage of a heavenly body across the meridian of a given location or through the field of a telescope.

      The experiments lasted long enough for us to detect the transit of black holes with a mass of up to 10 times that of our sun.

   2. the passage of Mercury or Venus across the disk of the sun, or of a satellite or its shadow across the face of its primary.

      In June 2012, a NASA webcast enabled the public to view the transit of Venus across the solar disk.

   3. meridian circle.

5. Astrology. the passage of a planet through one of the twelve houses or divisions of the celestial sphere or across the position held by another planet in a person’s birth chart.

   The transit of Mars is happening in the third house for you, so expect a shift in things concerning home and family.

6. Also called transit theodolite, transit instrument.  Surveying. a type of theodolite having a telescope that can be flipped vertically to reverse the direction of view: used for measuring horizontal and often vertical angles, sometimes with the ability to take successive measurements of the same angle and average them for greater accuracy.

7. U.S. Aerospace. Transit, one of a series of satellites for providing positional data to ships and aircraft.

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verb (used with object)

transits, present (3rd person singular) transited, past participle, past transiting present participle

1. to pass across or through.

   Many millions of oil barrels transit the Suez Canal every day.

   It’s fairly easy to intercept emails as they transit the internet.

2. Surveying, Astronomy. to flip (a telescope) vertically in order to reverse the direction of view.

3. Astronomy. to cross (a meridian, celestial body, etc.).

   Mercury transits the sun about 13 or 14 times each century.

verb (used without object)

transits, present (3rd person singular) transited, past participle, past transiting present participle

1. to pass over, through, into, or out of something.

   Are you planning on transiting through the United States?

   Attackers can hijack your data as it transits to and from your system.

2. Astronomy. to make a passage across a meridian, celestial body, etc..

   The probe was looking for planets transiting across the face of stars.

idioms

1. in transit. see in transit.

transit British  

/ ˈtrænsɪt, ˈtrænz- /

noun

1. 1. the passage or conveyance of goods or people

   2. ( as modifier )

      a transit visa

2. a change or transition

3. a route

4. astronomy

   1. the passage of a celestial body or satellite across the face of a relatively larger body as seen from the earth

   2. the apparent passage of a celestial body across the meridian, caused by the earth's diurnal rotation

5. astrology the passage of a planet across some special point on the zodiac

6. while being conveyed; during passage

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verb

1. to make a transit through or over (something)

2. astronomy to make a transit across (a celestial body or the meridian)

3. to cause (the telescope of a surveying instrument) to turn over or (of such a telescope) to be turned over in a vertical plane so that it points in the opposite direction

transit Scientific  

/ trăn′sĭt /

1. The passage of a smaller celestial body or its shadow across the disk of a larger celestial body. As observed from Earth, Mercury and Venus are the only planets of the solar system that make transits of the Sun, because they are the only planets with orbits that lie between Earth and the Sun. Mercury makes an average of 13 transits of the Sun each century. Transits of Venus across the Sun are much rarer, with only 7 of them having occurred between 1639 and 2004. In contrast, transits of Jupiter's moons across its disk are common occurrences.

2. Compare occultation

3. The passage of a celestial body across the celestial meridian (the great circle on the celestial sphere passing through the celestial poles and an observer's zenith). For any observer, the object is at its highest in the sky at its transit of the observer's meridian.

4. See more at celestial meridian

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• transitable
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• transits
  plural

Participles

• transiting
  present
• transited
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• transit
  simple
• transits
  simple
• have transited
  perfect
• has transited
  perfect
• am transiting
  progressive
• are transiting
  progressive
• is transiting
  progressive
• have been transiting
  perfect progressive
• has been transiting
  perfect progressive

Past

• transited
  simple
• had transited
  perfect
• was transiting
  progressive
• were transiting
  progressive
• had been transiting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will transit
  simple
• will have transited
  perfect
• will be transiting
  progressive
• will have been transiting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of transit

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English (noun and verb), from Latin trānsitus “crossing, passage,” noun use of past participle of trānsīre “to go across, pass over,” from trāns- trans- + īre “to go”

Explanation

Transit means “journey,” and saying you’re "in transit" means you’re on your way somewhere. Before we had cell phones, one of the upsides of being in transit was that no one could get in touch with you. Transit may be familiar to you from the phrase mass transit. While it sometimes seems like “mass transit” is synonymous with “unreliable, crowded and inefficient,” the phrase just means "public transportation." The first instance of transit being used in this sense was in the 19th century, and people have been complaining ever since. Transit is related to the word transition, which refers to a change from one state or condition to another.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

transit transits transited transiting

Some ships linked to the Russian government also sail from the Caspian via rivers and canals to the Black Sea where they can transit onward to other ports elsewhere in the world.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

The company has pitched privately funded projects in cities including Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles, where the startup stood to make money from ticketed passengers using its underground transit system.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026

New concourses, expanded corridors and improved passenger facilities have reshaped the transit hub, which serves hundreds of thousands of commuters and travelers each day and remains the busiest rail station in the United States.

From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2026

"The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation," it said, adding the waterway remained "open for commercial vessel transit".

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

The number of transits fell to eight on Thursday, the lowest level in three weeks, according to ship-tracking firm Kpler.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026

The number of ships using this Omani route grew to a peak of 28 vessels on 25 June, Kpler's data shows, overtaking the number of transits via the Iranian route.

From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026

On the same day there were 15 inbound tanker transits and 5 VLCCs.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026

Months of uninterrupted darkness made it possible to observe the planets' unusually long transits, each lasting more than 11 hours, without interruption.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 27, 2026

I watched two Phobos transits yesterday and sighted Deneb last night.

From "The Martian" by Andy Weir

More than a third of the 101 vessels that transited the strait used a lane that hugs the Iranian coast, according to commercial-ship tracker Kpler.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said it held Iran "fully responsible" for an apparent targeted attack on a vessel called Al-Rekayyat as it transited near the Strait.

From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026

Before the war began, Kpler data showed that more than 100 vessels carrying oil and other goods transited through the waterway per day.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026

“Meanwhile, shipping data showed millions of barrels of crude and fuel products transited the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, reinforcing expectations of improving regional supply flows.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026

And it was all untrue; I found out afterwards how they were transited.

From The Possessed (The Devils) by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

What is clear is that the trade is no longer just transiting through the continent but finding new manufacturing sites and markets.

From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026

"Between 2018 and 2023, apparently there was a resurface of major trafficking and transiting in Liberia. Over the last one-and-a-half years, we've been surveilling them and this is the result of that operation," said Coleman.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

This has left the Strait of Hormuz “deserted, with no ships observed transiting the waterway on Tuesday,” they say.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Monday launched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran, citing repeated attacks on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026

With this realization, priorities have been assigned to all critical circuits transiting the key facilities, based on established criteria of criticality of service continuity.

From An Assessment of the Consequences and Preparations for a Catastrophic California Earthquake: Findings and Actions Taken Prepared By Federal Emergency Management Agency by Various

Related Words

• passage
• shipment
• transport
• travel