Transposition

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act or process of transposing or interchanging. countable, especially, uncountable
  2. 2
    (music) playing in a different key from the key intended; moving the pitch of a piece of music upwards or downwards wordnet
  3. 3
    A shift of a piece of music to a different musical key by adjusting all the notes of the work equally either up or down in pitch. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    the act of reversing the order or place of wordnet
  5. 5
    A sequence of moves resulting in a position that may also be reached by another, more common sequence. countable, uncountable
Show 6 more definitions
  1. 6
    (electricity) a rearrangement of the relative positions of power lines in order to minimize the effects of mutual capacitance and inductance wordnet
  2. 7
    An incorporation of the provisions of a European Union directive into a Member State's domestic law. European-Union, countable, uncountable
  3. 8
    (mathematics) the transfer of a quantity from one side of an equation to the other along with a change of sign wordnet
  4. 9
    (genetics) a kind of mutation in which a chromosomal segment is transferred to a new position on the same or another chromosome wordnet
  5. 10
    an event in which one thing is substituted for another wordnet
  6. 11
    any abnormal position of the organs of the body wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To transpose
  2. 2
    To take on the role of another person

Synonyms

All synonyms
alternationanabolismavatarbattledore and shuttlecockcatabolismcatalysis

Example

More examples

"The operation moves the ileum closer to the pancreas, the organ that makes the insulin we need to process sugar into energy. A digestive hormone in the transposed intestine stimulates the pancreas to secrete more insulin, so diabetics don't need to take it artificially. Ileum transposition also corrects insulin resistance in Type 2 diabetics, according to Erik Wilson, who performs bariatric surgery at the University of Texas Houston."

Etymology

From Middle French transposition, from Medieval Latin transpositio.

Related phrases

honorific transpositiontransposition ciphertwelve tone technique

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