transitive

/ˈtɹænzɪtɪv/

transitive adjective: making a transit or passage.

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Adjective

transitive (not comparable)

Making a transit or passage.
- For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.1841-1843, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet
Affected by transference of signification.
- By far the greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words depend on casual and unaccountable caprices of the feelings or the fancy.1843, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
Taking 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
Antonyms:

intransitive
Having 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.
Antonyms:

intransitive, nontransitive
Such that, for any two elements of the acted-upon set, some group element maps the first to the second.
Such that, for any two vertices there exists an automorphism which maps one to the other.
Of a set of dice: not having the intransitive property.

Noun

transitive (plural transitives)

A 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

transitive meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

transitive in Hindi

grammar, of a verb: taking an object or objects: सकर्मक sakarmak

transitive in Urdu

مروری, متعددی

transitive in Telugu

transitive: సకర్మకము sakarmakamu

transitive in Malayalam

grammar, of a verb: taking an object or objects: സകർമ്മകക്രിയ sakaṟmmakakriya

More languagesFewer languages

transitive in Kannada: ಸಕರ್ಮಕ, ಇರ‍್ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಳ್ಳುವ
transitive in Sanskrit: सकर्मक sakarmaka
transitive in Tagalog: palipat
transitive in Arabic: مُتَعَدٍّ mutaʕaddin
transitive in Vietnamese: ngoại

Examples of transitive in a sentence

(transitive) After about a mile, we pulled off the main road onto a dirt track.
(transitive) "Sorry I'm late," replied the student.
(transitive) He replied that he was not sure.

All 31 example sentences with transitive

Antonyms of transitive

Forms of transitive

plural	transitives

Origin of transitive

From Latin trānsitīvus, from trānsitus, from trāns (“across”) + itus, from eō (“to go”).

Phrases with transitive

Questions about transitive

What does transitive mean?: Transitive means making a transit or passage.
What is transitive in Hindi?: Transitive in Hindi is सकर्मक (sakarmak). See Transitive meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is transitive?: Transitive can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce transitive?: Transitive is pronounced /ˈtɹænzɪtɪv/.

Words near transitive in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: transitive (page history and authors); transitive (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); సకర్మకము (Telugu) (page history and authors); transitive (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); सकर्मक (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). 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: en-us-transitive.ogg.

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