commutes

Verb

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

1. 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
   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.
   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
2. (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.

See all 11 meanings of commute