commute

/kəˈmjuːt/US/kəˈmjut/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

commute verb: to exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen.

Verb (1)

commute (third-person singular simple present commutes, present participle commuting, simple past and past participle commuted)

To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen
- to commute tithes into rentcharges for a sum
- to commute market rents for a premium
1. (transitive) To pay, or arrange to pay, in advance, in a lump sum instead of part by part.
  - to commute the daily toll for a year's pass
2. (transitive) To reduce the sentence previously given for a criminal offense.
  - His prison sentence was commuted to probation.
  - Ruslan Kutaev is evidence of this: not only was the elderly man sentenced to four years in prison (later commuted to two months), but he was tortured and his family threatened. This seems to be the price of viewing the world in other than Kadyrovite terms.2018, Dominic Rubin, Russia's Muslim Heartlands: Islam in the Putin Era, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 207
3. (transitive, pensions) To pay out the lumpsum present value of an annuity, instead of paying in instalments; to cash in; to encash
4. (intransitive, obsolete) To obtain or bargain for exemption or substitution;
  - He […] thinks it unlawful to commute, and that he is bound to pay his vow in kind.1660, Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in All Her General Measures; […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] James Flesher, for Richard Royston […], →OCLC
(intransitive) Of an operation, to be commutative, i.e. to have the property that changing the order of the operands does not change the result.
- A pair of matrices share the same set of eigenvectors if and only if they commute.

Noun

commute (plural commutes)

(transitive) A regular journey between two places, typically home and work.
- If you're hearing me then it means your ego has been commuted successfully into this CAT with zero errors. Only one warning by the way: it may take a moment to acclimatize to being a bodyless ego, but try not to worry too much.2022, MindThunk, Ctrl Alt Ego
- PS: The average commute time in the freewayless City of Vancouver is 27 minutes, while outside of the City of Vancouver the average commute time is 31 minutes.2012 July 12, Nathan Pachal, “TomTom Congestion Index Useless for Metro Vancouver”, in The South Fraser Blog
The route, time or distance of that journey.

Verb (2)

commute (third-person singular simple present commutes, present participle commuting, simple past and past participle commuted)

(Canada, UK, US, intransitive) To regularly travel from one's home to one's workplace or school, or vice versa.
- I commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan by bicycle.
- My convention diary is unusually disjointed, since I was mingily commuting from Berkshire rather than pay £65 per night for a single room.2005, David Langford, The Sex Column and Other Misprints, page 66
(Philippines, intransitive) To regularly travel from one place to another using public transport.
(intransitive) To journey, to make a journey
- By one estimate, vultures either residing in or commuting into the Serengeti ecosystem during the annual migration—when 1.3 million white-bearded wildebeests shuffle between Kenya and Tanzania—historically consumed more meat than all mammalian carnivores in the Serengeti combined.2015, Elizabeth Royte, Vultures Are Revolting. Here’s Why We Need to Save Them., National Geographic (December 2015)https://web.archive.org/web/20151213095110/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01...

commute meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

commute in Tamil

இனம் மாற்று, தண்டனையைக் குறை, மாற்றிப் பெறு, மாற்றிப்பெறு, மாற்றிக்குறைத்தல், வழக்கமாகப் பயணி

commute in Urdu

commute: ادلابدلی کرنا adlā badlī karnā

commute in Malayalam

തമ്മിൽ മാറ്റുക, പരിവർത്തിപ്പിക്കുക, ശിക്ഷ ലഘൂകരിക്കുക

More languagesFewer languages

commute in Kannada: ಪ್ರತಿನಿತ್ಯ ಪ್ರಯಾಣಮಾಡು, ಶಿಕ್ಷೆಯನ್ನು ತಗ್ಗಿಸು, ವಿನಿಮಯ ಮಾಡು, ಅದಲುಬದಲು ಮಾಡು
commute in Gujarati: આવનજાવન

Examples of commute in a sentence

My new job suits me, as I work fewer hours and don't have to commute so much.
Many people commute into the business district from the outskirts of town.
I will be a happy camper when they fix the potholes on my commute.

All 40 example sentences with commute

Forms of commute

Verb
third-person singular present	commutes
present participle	commuting
past participle	commuted
past	commuted
Noun
plural	commutes

Past tense of commute: commuted

Plural of commute: commutes

Origin of commute

Borrowed from Latin commūtō.

Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin -ātiōlbor. Old French -ationbor. Middle English -acioun English -ation English commutation English ticket English commutation ticket English commute From commutation ticket, a pass on a railroad, streetcar line, etc. that permitted multiple rides over a period of time, e.g. a month, for a single, commuted payment.

Words formed from commute

Words that rhyme with commute

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about commute

What does commute mean?: Commute means to exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen.
What is commute in Tamil?: Commute in Tamil is இனம் மாற்று, தண்டனையைக் குறை, மாற்றிப் பெறு. See Commute meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is commute?: Commute can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce commute?: Commute is pronounced /kəˈmjuːt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of commute?: The past tense of commute is commuted.

Words near commute in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: commute (page history and authors); commute (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ادلابدلی کرنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); commute (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); commute (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); commute (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); commute (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-commute.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-commute.wav.

Cite this entry: “commute.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/commute. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.