Transverse

//tɹanzˈvɜːs// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Anything that is transverse or athwart, such as a road or a ship's web frame.
  2. 2
    The longer, or transverse, axis of an ellipse.
Verb
  1. 1
    To lie or run across; to cross. transitive
  2. 2
    To traverse or thwart. transitive
  3. 3
    To overturn. transitive

    "And so long shall her censures, when justly passed, have their effect: how then can they be altered or transversed, suspended or superseded, by a temporal government, that must vanish and come to nothing?"

  4. 4
    To alter or transform. transitive

    "In love, it is said, all stratagems are fair, and many little ladies transverse the axiom by applying it to discover the secrets of their friends."

  5. 5
    To change from prose into verse, or from verse into prose. obsolete, transitive

    "Bayes: Why, thus, Sir; nothing so easy when understood; I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere, for that's all one, if there be any wit in't, as there is no book but has some, I transverse it; that is, if it be prose, put it into verse, (but that takes up some time) and if it be verse, put it into prose."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Situated or lying across; side to side, relative to some defined "forward" direction; perpendicular or slanted relative to the "forward" direction; identified with movement across areas. not-comparable

    "The units have transverse seats, two and three astride the passageway with single or double longitudinal seats alongside the two entrance vestibules in each car."

  2. 2
    Made at right angles to the long axis of the body. not-comparable
  3. 3
    (of an intersection) Not tangent, so that a nondegenerate angle is formed between the two things intersecting. (For the general definition, see Transversality (mathematics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia.) not-comparable
  4. 4
    Not in direct line of descent; collateral. not-comparable, obsolete
Adjective
  1. 1
    extending or lying across; in a crosswise direction; at right angles to the long axis wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
transversalacrossacross the grainathwartathwartshipsbar

Example

More examples

"From the theory of relativity, Einstein has calculated both the transverse and the longitudinal accelerations experienced by a charged body moving in an electromagnetic field."

Etymology

Late Middle English, from Latin trānsversus (“turned across; going or lying across or crosswise”). Doublet of transversal.

Related phrases

transverse cervical arterytransverse colontransverse facial arterytransverse flow effecttransverse flutetransverse planetransverse processtransverse relaxation timetransverse sinustransverse tubuletransverse waveside to side

More for "transverse"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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