traverse

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɹævə(ɹ)s/, /tɹəˈvə(ɹ)s/

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.
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 […]

   • F. Beaumont

     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.

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

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.

• Grand Traverse County
• traversal
• Traverse City
• Traverse County
• traversive
• travis

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

1. (transitive) To travel across, often under difficult conditions.

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

   • Alexander Pope

     what seas you traversed, and what fields you fought

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.
   • Dryden

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

4. (artillery) 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 cross by way of opposition; to thwart with obstacles; to obstruct.
   • Sir Walter Scott

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

8. To pass over and view; to survey carefully.
   • South

     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.
    • Dryden

      And save the expense of long litigious laws, / Where suits are traversed, and so little won / That he who conquers is but last undone.

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

   • Sir H. Wotton

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

   • Hayward

     the ridges of the fallow field traverse

• traverse drill

• averters

• IPA^(key): /tʁa.vɛʁs/

From Vulgar Latin traversa, feminine of traversus.

traverse f (plural traverses)

1. (rail transport) sleeper (UK), tie (US)

Inflected forms.

traverse

1. first-person singular present indicative of traverser
2. third-person singular present indicative of traverser
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of traverser
4. first-person singular present subjunctive of traverser
5. second-person singular imperative of traverser

• réservât, reversât

• “traverse” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

traverse

1. feminine plural of traverso

traverse f

1. plural of traversa

• varreste