transcend

Borrowed from Old French transcender, from Latin transcendere (“to climb over, step over, surpass, transcend”), from trans (“over”) + scandere (“to climb”); see scan; compare ascend, descend.

• IPA^(key): /tɹæn(t)ˈsɛnd/

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transcend (third-person singular simple present transcends, present participle transcending, simple past and past participle transcended)

1. (transitive) to pass beyond the limits of something.
   • Francis Bacon

     such popes as shall transcend their limits

2. (transitive) to surpass, as in intensity or power; to excel.
   • Dryden

     How much her worth transcended all her kind.

3. (obsolete) To climb; to mount.

   lights in the heavens transcending the region of the clouds

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Howell to this entry?)

• transcend in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• transcend in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.