Definition of "traverse"

traverse

noun
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.
  Quotations
  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.
  1811, Ben Jonson, The Dramatic Works: Embellished with Portraits, volume 4, page 571
3. (obsolete) A screen or partition.
  Quotations
  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 […]
  1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Court
  At the entrance of the king, / The first traverse was drawn.
  1613, Francis Beaumont, The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn
4. Something that thwarts or obstructs.
5. (architecture) A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building.
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.
  Quotations
  At night, when the Federal guns slowed their fire, the men created new traverses and bombproofs.
  1994, Stephen R. Wise, Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863, page 160
10. (nautical) A traverse board.
  Quotations
  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.
  1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 7, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I
verb
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.
  Quotations
  What seas you travers'd, and what fields you fought! / Your country's peace how oft, how dearly bought!
  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
  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.
  2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, pages 56–57
2. (transitive, computing) To visit all parts of; to explore thoroughly.
3. To lay in a cross direction; to cross.
  Quotations
  The parts should be often traversed, or crossed, by the flowing of the folds.
  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, […]
4. (weaponry) To rotate a gun around a vertical axis to bear upon a military target.
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.
7. To act against; to thwart or obstruct.
  Quotations
  The well-meaning priest suffered him to deceive himself, fully determined to traverse his views, instead of seconding them.
  1764, “Onuphrio Muralto”, chapter II, in William Marshal [pseudonym; Horace Walpole], transl., The Castle of Otranto, […], Dublin: […] J. Hoey, […], published 1765
  I cannot but […] admit the force of this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse.
  1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […]
8. To pass over and view; to survey carefully.
  Quotations
  My purpose is to […] traverse the nature, principles, and properties of this detestable vice—ingratitude.
  1675, Robert South, Of the odious Sin of Ingratitude (A Sermon preached at Christ-Church, Oxon, October 17, 1675)
9. (carpentry) To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood.
10. (law) To deny formally.
  Quotations
  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: […]
  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, page 186
11. (intransitive, fencing) To use the motions of opposition or counteraction.
adverb
comparative more traverse, superlative most traverse
1. athwart; across; crosswise
adjective
comparative more traverse, superlative most traverse
1. Lying across; being in a direction across something else.
  Quotations
  Oak […] being strong in all positions, may be better trusted in cross and traverse work.
  1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill
  the ridges of the fallow field lay trauerse
  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

Definition of "traverse"

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