traversal

American  

[truh-vur-suhl] / trəˈvɜr səl /

noun

1. the act or process of passing across, over, or through.

   A problem with the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it began its traversal of the rings of Saturn was eventually linked to high-speed collisions with micrometeoroids.

2. Computers. the act or process of systematically visiting all nodes of a tree or other linked data structure, usually for the purposes of collecting or transforming data at the nodes.

   Issues fixed in this release include a vulnerability in directory traversal that could give an attacker the ability to access files that should be restricted.

---

Etymology

Origin of traversal

travers(e) ( def. ) + -al ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

traversal

Headlined by conductor Marco Armiliato, soprano Lisette Oropesa as the heroine Elvira and tenor Lawrence Brownlee as her beloved Arturo, this was a musically idiomatic and expressive traversal.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026

“You’re talking about a snake robot that can do surface traversal on ice, go through holes and swim underwater — one robot that can conquer all three worlds,” Rohan Thakker, a robotics technologist at JPL.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2023

If you thought Stasis was powerful, Strand goes even further with abilities that are more focused on movement and traversal to help.

From The Verge ● Aug. 23, 2022

If Mr. Levit’s traversal, paid for using the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award he received in 2018, was brisk, it was only for small stretches.

From New York Times ● May 31, 2020

A hop is a traversal across a gateway.

From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet by Krol, Ed