transitive, a. (n.)
(ˈtrɑːnsɪtɪv, ˈtræns-, -nz-)
[ad. late L. transitīvus (Priscian), f. transit- (see transit) + -īvus, -ive; in F. transitif (16th c.). With sense 1 cf. OF. transitif transient (13th c. in Godef.).]
† 1. Passing or liable to pass into another condition, changeable, changeful; passing away, transient, transitory. Obs. rare.
| 1560 Rolland Crt. Venus i. 67 Thair waillit weid..Sa gay it was,..Sa wariant to sicht and transitiue. 1625 R. Brathwait Five Senses 296 What availes it thee now to enjoy the transitive honours of this life? 1845 [implied in transitiveness]. 1906 Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republican 8 Mar. 6 At present he is in a transitive state. |
2. a. Gram. Of verbs and their construction: Expressing an action which passes over to an object; taking a direct object to complete the sense.
| 1571 [implied in transitively a]. 1590 J. Stockwood Rules Constr. 64 A verbe transitiue..is such..as passeth ouer his signification into some other thing, as when I say, ‘I loue God’. 1673 O. Walker Educ. 153 Others are transient, when the Agent and Patient are divers, and are expressed by Verbs transitives, as striking, heating [etc.]. 1845 Stoddart Gram. in Encycl. Metrop. (1847) I. 48/1 Verbs transitive and intransitive are, in other words, active and neuter; for the verb active is considered as passing over from the agent to the object, whilst the neuter is considered as not passing over. |
b. as n. A transitive verb.
| 1612 Brinsley Lud. Lit. 129 That other rule for the Acusatiue after the Verbe, is of Transitiues, whose action passeth into another thing. |
3. Philos. Passing out of itself; passing over to or affecting something else; operating beyond itself; = transient 2. (Opposed to immanent.)
| 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage i. i. 5 For all the proprieties of God are infinite, as they are immanent in himselfe, yet in their transitiue and forren effectes are stinted and limited to the modell and state of the creature. 1626 Bacon Sylva §70 Cold is Active and Transitive into Bodies Adjacent, as well as Heat. 1785 Reid Intell. Powers ii. xiv. (1803) I. 306 Logicians distinguish two kinds of operations of the mind; the first kind produces no effect without the mind, the last does. The first they call immanent acts; the second transitive. 1893 Fairbairn Christ in Mod. Theol. ii. ii. iii. 441 It is of the essence of both to be transitive. Love regards an object whose good it desires; righteousness is the conduct which fulfils the desire of love. |
4. Characterized by or involving transition, in various senses: that has something passing through it (obs.); that itself passes through stages; that forms a transition (real, or in thought) between two stages, positions, or conditions; that is in an intermediate stage or position; transitional; intermediate; transformational. Now rare or Obs.
| 1660 Jer. Taylor Duct. Dubit. ii. ii. rule vi. §7 An image that is understood to be an image can never be made an idol; or if it can it must be by having the worship of God pass'd thorough it to God;..by being the analogical, the improper, the transitive, the relative (or what shall I call it) object of Divine worship. 1811 Pinkerton Petralogy I. 73 This transitive grunstein occurs in the Hartz. 1836 I. Taylor Phys. The. Another Life xii. (1847) 166 The preparations that are made by any of the transitive species of animals..for their approaching metamorphosis. 1854 F. C. Bakewell Geol. 5 The lower portion, resting on the crystalline rocks, being called the transitive series. 1860 Mayne Expos. Lex., Transitivus, applied by Werner to rocks or soils that present..the vestiges of organised bodies;..as forming the transition of soils from the first class to those of the third, with which they are nearly related: transitive. 1865 Grote Plato I. xvii. 494 The transitive process, above described, represents the successive stages by which every adult mind has been gradually built up from infancy. |
5. Of the application of words: Transferred. rare. ? Obs.
| 1810 D. Stewart Philos. Ess. ii. i. i. 226 The greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words depend on casual and unaccountable caprices of the feelings or of the fancy. |
6. Math. [ad. G. transitiv (S. Lie Theorie d. Transformationsgruppen (1888) I. 212).] In the theory of groups: see quots.
| 1888 Amer. Jrnl. Math. X. 297 If..a Gr in xy can transform every ordinary point of the plane to every other ordinary point of the plane, the Gr is said to be transitive. 1890 Cent. Dict. s.v. Group, A group is called doubly, triply, or n times transitive if any set of 2, 3, n elements can be brought to any places. 1902 Encycl. Brit. XXIX. 121/1 If it is possible to find an operation S of the group such that O.S is any assigned one of the set of objects, the group is called transitive in respect of this set of objects. When this is not possible, the group is called intransitive in respect of the set. 1968 [see primitive a. 5 d]. 1971 L. Dornhoff Group Representation Theory A. xxxvi. 215 Nontrivial normal subgroups of primitive permutation groups are transitive. |
7. Math. and Logic. Of a relation: such that if it holds between a first and second item, and also between the second and a third, it necessarily holds between the first and the third.
| 1856 A. de Morgan in Trans. Cambr. Philos. Soc. IX. 104 The first is what I shall call transitiveness, symbolized in X—Y—Z = X—Z; meaning that if X stand in the relation denoted by — to Y, and Y to Z, X therefore stands in that relation to Z. Very many copulæ exist in which this transitive relation is seen. 1870, etc. [see intransitive a. 3]. 1903, etc. [see reflexive a. 7]. 1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic iii. 79 As each of these relations is symmetrical..and also transitive..it follows that the groups of visual and tactual sense-contents which are constituted by means of these relations cannot have any members in common. 1956 E. H. Hutten Lang. Mod. Physics iv. 143 We take as axiom the statement that the thermal equilibrium is a transitive relation, i.e. if two bodies in thermal equilibrium are in equilibrium with a third body, all three bodies have a common property, that is, the same temperature. 1976 Nature 29 Apr. 773/1 Whether or not the young child can make transitive inferences..is still a controversial issue. 1979 Georgacarakos & Smith Elem. Formal Logic ix. 330 Many comparative adjectives provide transitive relations, such as it is taller than. |