transitive
Grammar. having the nature of a transitive verb.
characterized by or involving transition; transitional; intermediate.
passing over to or affecting something else; transeunt.
Mathematics. noting a relation in which one element in relation to a second element and the second in relation to a third element implies the first element is in relation to the third element, as the relation “less than or equal to.”
Grammar. a transitive verb.
Origin of transitive
1Other words from transitive
- tran·si·tive·ly, adverb
- tran·si·tive·ness, tran·si·tiv·i·ty, noun
- non·tran·si·tive, adjective, noun
- non·tran·si·tive·ly, adverb
- non·tran·si·tive·ness, noun
- un·tran·si·tive, adjective
- un·tran·si·tive·ly, adverb
- un·tran·si·tive·ness, noun
Words Nearby transitive
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use transitive in a sentence
Though science is regrettably behind in confirming this, I think it’s fair to say that, because pain causes an endorphin response, and hot peppers cause pain, by the transitive principle, eating hot peppers probably causes an endorphin rush.
What would possess someone to eat a Carolina Reaper pepper? This writer tried to find out. | Leigh Cowart | September 20, 2021 | Popular-ScienceHow transitive these equations are is the question posed above, but it is trivial to follow the thread from one to the next to the next.
The inescapable overlap of pandemic and politics | Philip Bump | September 10, 2021 | Washington PostIf the word is to be taken as virtually transitive, the object must be the partisans of the offender.
Expositor's Bible: The Second Epistle to the Corinthians | James DenneyThat's called "transitive trust" -- trust that moves across the web of our relationships.
Little Brother | Cory DoctorowThe intransitive form derives from the transitive by dropping a generalized, customary, reflexive or cognate object.
Instigations | Ezra Pound
To grammarians and logicians these have seemed more primitive than the transitive, or at least exceptions to the transitive.
Instigations | Ezra PoundI found that it was his persistent, natural, and magnificent use of hundreds of transitive verbs.
Instigations | Ezra Pound
British Dictionary definitions for transitive
/ (ˈtrænsɪtɪv) /
grammar
denoting an occurrence of a verb when it requires a direct object or denoting a verb that customarily requires a direct object: ``to find'' is a transitive verb
(as noun): these verbs are transitives
grammar denoting an adjective, such as fond, or a noun, such as husband, that requires a noun phrase and cannot be used without some implicit or explicit reference to such a noun phrase
logic maths having the property that if one object bears a relationship to a second object that also bears the same relationship to a third object, then the first object bears this relationship to the third object: mathematical equality is transitive, since if x = y and y = z then x = z
Origin of transitive
1- Compare intransitive
Derived forms of transitive
- transitively, adverb
- transitivity or transitiveness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for transitive
[ trăn′sĭ-tĭv ]
Of or relating to a mathematical or logical relation between three elements such that if the relation holds between the first and second elements and between the second and third elements, it necessarily holds between the first and third elements. The relation of being greater than in mathematics is transitive, since if a > b and b > c, then a > c.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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