traverse

From Middle English traversen, from Old French traverser, from Latin trans (“across”) + versus (“turned”), perfect passive participle of Latin vertere (“to turn”).

All parts of speech:

• (General American) IPA^(key): /tɹəˈvɝs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɹəˈvɜːs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s
• Hyphenation: tra‧verse

Alternative noun pronunciation:

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɹævɚs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɹævəs/
• Hyphenation: trav‧erse

traverse (plural traverses)

1. (climbing) A route used in mountaineering, specifically rock climbing, in which the descent occurs by a different route than the ascent.
2. (surveying) A series of points, with angles and distances measured between, traveled around a subject, usually for use as "control" i.e. angular reference system for later surveying work.
   • 1811, Ben Jonson, The Dramatic Works: Embellished with Portraits, volume 4, page 571:

     At the entrance of the king, the first traverse was drawn, and the lower descent of the mountain discovered, which was the pendant of a hill to life, with divers boscages and grovets upon the steep or hanging grounds thereof.

3. (obsolete) A screen or partition.
   • 1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Court:

     Than sholde ye see there pressynge in a pace / Of one and other that wolde this lady see, / Whiche sat behynde a traves of sylke fyne, / Of golde of tessew the fynest that myghte be […]

   • 1613, Francis Beaumont, The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn:

     At the entrance of the king, / The first traverse was drawn.

4. Something that thwarts or obstructs.

   He will succeed, as long as there are no unlucky traverses not under his control.

5. (architecture) A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building.^[1]
6. (law) A formal denial of some matter of fact alleged by the opposite party in any stage of the pleadings. The technical words introducing a traverse are absque hoc ("without this", i.e. without what follows).
7. (nautical) The zigzag course or courses made by a ship in passing from one place to another; a compound course.
8. (geometry) A line lying across a figure or other lines; a transversal.
9. (military) In trench warfare, a defensive trench built to prevent enfilade.
   • 1994, Stephen R. Wise, Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863, page 160:

     At night, when the Federal guns slowed their fire, the men created new traverses and bombproofs.

10. (nautical) A traverse board.
    • 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 7, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I:

      The whole care of the vessel rested, therefore, upon me, and I was obliged to direct her by my former experience, not being able to work a traverse.

traverse (third-person singular simple present traverses, present participle traversing, simple past and past participle traversed)

1. (transitive) To travel across, to go through, to pass through, particularly under difficult conditions.

   He will have to traverse the mountain to get to the other side.

   • 1737, Alexander Pope, First Epistle on the Second Book of Horace, lines 396–397; republished in The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902, page 197:

     What seas you travers'd, and what fields you fought! / Your country's peace how oft, how dearly bought!

   • 1951 September, B. D. J. Walsh, “The Sudbury and Haverhill Line, Eastern Region”, in Railway Magazine, page 619:

     Here the line is joined by the Colne Valley branch, and both tracks are carried into Haverhill station upon a high embankment from which the town can be seen on the south side. The twin tracks, after traversing a scissors crossover, become the down and up roads through the station, which possesses an extensive goods yard.

   • 2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, pages 56–57:

     The journey is worth an article in itself, but all I can give is a flavour of a railway which traverses a bleak but dramatic coastline that's regularly battered by the elements - especially around Parton, where the line is constantly threatened by the sea.

2. (transitive, computing) To visit all parts of; to explore thoroughly.

   to traverse all nodes in a network

3. To lay in a cross direction; to cross.
   • 1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, […], London: […] J[ohn] Heptinstall for W. Rogers, […], →OCLC:

     The parts should be often traversed, or crossed, by the flowing of the folds.

4. (weaponry) To rotate a gun around a vertical axis to bear upon a military target.

   to traverse a cannon

5. (climbing) To climb or descend a steep hill at a wide angle (relative to the slope).
6. (engineering, skiing) To (make a cutting, an incline) across the gradients of a sloped face at safe rate.

   the road traversed the face of the ridge as the right-of-way climbed the mountain

   The last run, weary, I traversed the descents in no hurry to reach the lodge.

7. To act against; to thwart or obstruct.
   • 1764 December 24 (indicated as 1765), Onuphrio Muralto, translated by William Marshal [pseudonyms; Horace Walpole], chapter II, in The Castle of Otranto, […], London: […] Tho[mas] Lownds […], →OCLC, page 74:

     The well meaning Prieſt ſuffered him to deceive himſelf, fully determined to traverſe his views, inſtead of ſeconding them.

   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     I cannot but […] admit the force of this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse.

8. To pass over and view; to survey carefully.
   • 1675, Robert South, Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude (A Sermon preached at Christ-Church, Oxon, October 17, 1675)

     My purpose is to […] traverse the nature, principles, and properties of this detestable vice—ingratitude.

9. (carpentry) To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood.

   to traverse a board

10. (law) To deny formally.
    • a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “Epistle the Thirteenth. To My Honoured Kinsman, John Dryden, of Chesterton, in the County of Huntingdon, Esq”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume II, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC, page 186:

      Without their coſt, you terminate the cauſe; / And ſave th' expence of long litigious laws: / Where ſuits are travers'd; and ſo little won, / That he who conquers, is but laſt undone: […]

11. (intransitive, fencing) To use the motions of opposition or counteraction.

traverse (comparative more traverse, superlative most traverse)

1. athwart; across; crosswise

traverse (comparative more traverse, superlative most traverse)

1. Lying across; being in a direction across something else.

   paths cut with traverse trenches

   • 1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC:

     Oak […] being strong in all positions, may be better trusted in cross and traverse work.

   • a. 1628 (date written), John Hayward, The Life, and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press, and J. Lichfield at Oxford?] for Iohn Partridge, […], published 1630, →OCLC:

     the ridges of the fallow field lay trauerse

• traverse drill

• averrest, averters

• IPA^(key): /tʁa.vɛʁs/
• IPA^(key): /tʁa.vɛʁs/

From Vulgar Latin traversa, feminine of traversus.

traverse f (plural traverses)

1. crossing
2. (literary) obstacle, hurdle
   • 1640, Pierre Corneille, Horace, act I, scene I:

     Qu’on voit naître souvent de pareilles traverses / En des esprits divers des passions diverses / Et qu’à nos yeux Camille agit bien autrement !

     [Indeed,] how one sees the same hurdles engender / Diverse passions in diverse spirits / And how, before our eyes, Camille acts so differently!

3. (rail transport) sleeper (UK), tie (US)
4. (mechanics) crosspiece
5. byway, shortcut
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, chapter II, in Madame Bovary:

     Or il y a, de Tostes aux Bertaux, six bonnes lieues de traverse, en passant par Longueville et Saint-Victor.

     Now, it is a good six leagues from Tostes to Bertaux, taking the shortcut through Longueville and Saint-Victor.

Inflected forms.

traverse

1. inflection of traverser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “traverse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• réservât, reversât

traverse

1. feminine plural of traverso

traverse f

1. plural of traversa

• varreste