Transitivity

//ˌtɹænzɪˈtɪvɪti// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The degree in which any one verb can take or govern objects. countable, uncountable

    "There are 3 cardinal degrees of transitivity of any one verb: intransitive, monotransitive and ditransitive."

  2. 2
    the grammatical relation created by a transitive verb wordnet
  3. 3
    The property of being transitive. countable, uncountable

    "The hypothetical syllogism inference rule states the transitivity of implication."

  4. 4
    (logic and mathematics) a relation between three elements such that if it holds between the first and second and it also holds between the second and third it must necessarily hold between the first and third wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
transitiveness

Example

More examples

"There are 3 cardinal degrees of transitivity of any one verb: intransitive, monotransitive and ditransitive."

Etymology

From French transitivité. Morphologically transitive + -ity.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.