How to use transitive in a sentence
31 example sentences · adjective, noun
Transitive means making a transit or passage. Example: “The English verb "to notice" is a transitive verb, because we say things like "She noticed a problem".”
Examples of transitive by meaning
adjectiveTaking a direct object or objects.
- The English verb "to notice" is a transitive verb, because we say things like "She noticed a problem".
- Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb.1908, G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
adjectiveHaving the property that if an element a is related to b and b is related to c, then a is necessarily related to c.
- "Is an ancestor of" is a transitive relation: if Alice is an ancestor of Bob, and Bob is an ancestor of Carol, then Alice is an ancestor of Carol.
nounA transitive verb.
- This means that subcategorization properties do not allow us to distinguish between transitives and intransitives (both types of verbs are allowed, but not obliged, to take a direct object).2011, Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, The Syntax of Romanian: Comparative Studies in Romance, page 136
More sentences with transitive
- (transitive) After about a mile, we pulled off the main road onto a dirt track.From the entry pull off
- (transitive) "Sorry I'm late," replied the student.From the entry reply
- (transitive) He replied that he was not sure.From the entry reply
- Ring species demonstrate that "can interbreed with" is not transitive.From the entry ring species
- The word "drink" is a transitive verb in "they drink wine", but an intransitive one in "they drink often."From the entry intransitive
- The database distributed verbs into transitive and intransitive segments.From the entry distribute
- Although it is both transitive and intransitive, paint is not an ergative verb, because when we say "Bob paints", this is very different from when we say "Bob gets painted".From the entry ergative verb
- The verb ìtoa 'say' is a regular transitive verb and so cannot express a beneficiary.2011, Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, page 178. From the entry bitransitive
- The more formal register of Samoan requires the ergative on all postverbal transitive subjects.2006, Miriam Butt, “The Ergative Dragon”, in Theories of Case (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge…. From the entry ergative
- Another way is to pass the favor on, as per transitive reciprocity.2006, David Schmidtz, The Elements of Justice, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 83. From the entry return the favor
- We call P (combinatorially) regular if its automorphism group Γ(P) is transitive on its flags.2002, Peter McMullen, Egon Schulte, Abstract Regular Polytopes, Encyclopedia of Mathematics and Its Applications 92, page 31. From the entry flag
- French indirect transitive verbs, i.e. verbs which take an indirect object, cannot be passive.1999, Monique L'Huillier, Advanced French Grammar, →ISBN, page 245. From the entry indirect transitive
- It was verbed (transitive too!), adjectivized, and adverbified, and all in period.1994 March 20, Tim McDaniel, “Ellisif's statement on the suit”, in rec.org.sca (Usenet). From the entry adverbify
- Speer suggests that this useful word is a transitive form of grouch.1959, Richard "Dick" Harris Eney, Fancyclopedia II, Grotch. From the entry grotch
- An inanimate transitive subject can be made to conform to the restriction by adding a delineator to it.2018, András Bárány, Person, Case, and Agreement, page 135. From the entry delineator
- Similarly, verb forms that can govern either transitive or middle-case marking (cf. 2.1.3.1.2(c)) are more telic in their transitive manifestations.2000, Niko Besnier, Tuvaluan: A Polynesian Language of the Central Pacific, published 2002, page 495. From the entry telic
- The ergative case marks the agent of a transitive verb.1987, George van Driem, “Nominal Morphology”, in A Grammar of Limbu (Mouton Grammar Library; 4), Berlin; New York, N.Y.: Mouton de…. From the entry ergative
- Each sentence had the same basic structure: The subject transitive verbed the object who intransitive verbed in the location.1964, Journal of Mathematical Psychology. From the entry verb
- From this we prove the structure theorem that every transitive action of a gyrogroup can be realized as a gyrogroup action by left gyroaddition.2016, Teerapong Suksumran, “Gyrogroup actions: A generalization of group actions”, in arXiv. From the entry gyroaddition
- A further wrinkle in the traditional analysis of quotative clause as direct object is that the verbs used to introduce quotation are not always transitive.2015, Alexandra D'Arcy, “Quotation and Advances in Understanding Syntactic Systems”, in Annual Review of Linguistics, volume 1, →DOI, page…. From the entry nonquotative
- Middle verbs in English are intransitive verbs, whereas their base verbs are transitive, that is, require a direct object to be present.2005, Geert Booij, The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN…. From the entry middle verb
- The relation is called nontransitive if it is not transitive, i.e., if there exist x, y, z with xRy, yRz, and not xRz.1998, Hans Hermes, Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Springer, page 142. From the entry nontransitivity
- Definition If E is a non-empty set then by an order on E we mean a binary relation on E that is reflexive, anti-symmetric, and transitive.2005, T. S. Blyth, Lattices and Ordered Algebraic Structures, Springer, page 1. From the entry binary relation
- Although these operations can convert a transitive into a ditransitive through the addition of verbal extensions, these operations may not convert a ditransitive into a tri-transitive.1992, Camillia N. Keach, Michael Rochemont, “On the syntax of possessor raising in Swahili”, in Studies in African Linguistics, volume 23…. From the entry tritransitive
- We begin by explaining how a transitive permutation group may be represented graphically, and then we reverse the process, showing that a graph gives rise to a permutation group.1979, Norman L. Biggs, A. T. White, Permutation Groups and Combinatorial Structures, page 80. From the entry permutation group
- In all the Apachean languages, verbs are divided into two major categories, neuters and actives, each of which may be further divided into intransitives, transitives, and passives.1971, Harry Hoijer, “Athapaskan Morphology”, in Jesse O. Sawyer, editor, Studies in American Indian Languages, University of California…. From the entry neuter
- Verbs that are doubly transitive, or that take a complement in the accusative in addition to a direct object, retain the accusative second object or complement in the passive voice.1994, Wheeler M. Thackston, chapter 21, in An Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic: An Elementary Grammar of the Language, page 124. From the entry doubly transitive
Meaning of transitive
- adjective Making a transit or passage.
- adjective Affected by transference of signification.
- adjective Taking a direct object or objects.
Questions about transitive in a sentence
- How do you use transitive in a sentence?
- Transitive is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The English verb "to notice" is a transitive verb, because we say things like "She noticed a problem".”
- What is a short sentence with transitive?
- “(transitive) "Sorry I'm late," replied the student.”
- What does transitive mean?
- Transitive means making a transit or passage.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: transitive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use transitive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/transitive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
