Word.ws English Dictionary

transmat

transmat noun: a teleporter; a fictional device that transfers/transmits matter from one location to another without the object traversing the intervening distance as itself.

Noun

transmat (plural transmats)

  1. (UK) A teleporter; a fictional device that transfers/transmits matter from one location to another without the object traversing the intervening distance as itself.
    • One of these days.., they'll invent a Transmat that'll set you down anywhere.1959 June, Laurence Janifer, “Obey that Impulse!”, in Future Science Fiction, number 43, page 40
    • Three lines of workers began to vanish into the transmats, heading for their homes in the android compounds of five continents, […]1970 June, Robert Silverberg, “The Tower of Glass”, in Galaxy Science Fiction, volume 30, number 3, page 83

Verb

transmat (third-person singular simple present transmats, present participle transmatting, simple past and past participle transmatted)

  1. (UK, ambitransitive) To teleport; to (cause to) travel via transmat device.
    • It wasn't far enough away to think about transmatting and besides, that was no longer a viable option, what with vandals having wrecked some of the booths in the area.1991, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Carmen Carter, Robert Greenberger, Doomsday World (Star Trek: The Next Generation; 12), Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 171
    • 'No, you're not,' Blandish put in smoothly 'You're transmatting down with me. I'll head the away team and I'll consent to let you advise.'1999, Paul Magrs, Jeremy Hoad, The Blue Angel (Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures; 27), BBC Worldwide, →ISBN, page 36

Forms of transmat

Noun
pluraltransmats
alternative formtrans-mat
Verb
third-person singular presenttransmats
present participletransmatting
past participletransmatted
pasttransmatted

Origin of transmat

Attested since the 1950s, from transmit or transfer and matter; perhaps popularized by the British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

Questions about transmat

What does transmat mean?
Transmat means a teleporter; a fictional device that transfers/transmits matter from one location to another without the object traversing the intervening distance as itself.
What part of speech is transmat?
Transmat can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of transmat?
The plural of transmat is transmats.

Words near transmat in the dictionary

  1. transmasculine
  2. transmasculinities
  3. transmasculinity
  4. transmastoid
  5. transmastoidal
  6. transmat
  7. transmaternal
  8. transmats
  9. transmatted
  10. transmatting
  11. transmaxx

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: transmat (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.

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