Tran"si*tive (?), a. [L. transitivus: cf. F. transitif. See Transient.] 1. Having the power of making a transit, or passage. [R.] Bacon.

2. Effected by transference of signification.

By far the greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words depend on casual and unaccountable caprices of the feelings or the fancy.

3. (Gram.) Passing over to an object; expressing an action which is not limited to the agent or subject, but which requires an object to complete the sense; as, a transitive verb, for example, he holds the book.

-- Tran"si*tive*ly, adv. -- Tran"si*tive*ness, n.

Tran"si*tive (?), a. [L. transitivus: cf. F. transitif. See Transient.] 1. Having the power of making a transit, or passage. [R.] Bacon.

2. Effected by transference of signification.

By far the greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words depend on casual and unaccountable caprices of the feelings or the fancy.

3. (Gram.) Passing over to an object; expressing an action which is not limited to the agent or subject, but which requires an object to complete the sense; as, a transitive verb, for example, he holds the book.

-- Tran"si*tive*ly, adv. -- Tran"si*tive*ness, n.

• Making a transit or passage.
       Quotations
       *For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. — w:Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet
  
• Affected by transference of signification.
       Quotations
       *By far the greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words depend on casual and unaccountable caprices of the feelings or the fancy. - Stewart?
  
• (grammar): Of a verb, that takes an object or objects.
       In "I read the book", "read" is a transitive verb.
       Quotations
       *Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. — w:G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
  
• (settheory): Of a relation R on a set S, such that if xRy and yRz, then xRz for all members x, y and z of S (that is, if the relation applies from one element to a second, and from the second to a third, then it also applies from the first element to the third).
       "Is an ancestor of" is a symmetric relation.