trans
Formstranses, transing, transed
- 1Short for transgender (or transsexual), and often used as an umbrella term: having a gender identity that differs from the sex assigned at birth, including nonbinary and genderfluid people.
The clinic offers care designed for trans patients of all ages.
Several trans athletes testified at the hearing on the proposed ban.
UsageBefore a noun (trans people, trans students) or after a verb: she's trans.
Similartransgender
Note
The Latin pair behind the chemist's cis and trans turns up here as well: trans, clipped from transgender or transsexual, stands opposite cisgender. It works before a noun, as in trans people, trans children or trans students, and after a verb, as in Shon Faye's 2018 headline beginning "I'm trans".
- 2In chemistry, describing an isomer or arrangement in which two particular atoms or groups lie on opposite sides of a double bond or of a central metal atom.
Partial hydrogenation turns some of the cis double bonds in vegetable oil into trans double bonds.
Fumaric acid is the trans isomer of maleic acid.
Oppositecis
Note
The word is Latin trāns, "on the other side of", and in chemistry it always works against cis, which puts the two specified atoms or groups on the same side. A double bond cannot rotate freely, so the arrangement is locked in, and it changes the molecule's shape and properties. The trans fats of partly hydrogenated oils are named for exactly these bonds.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Chemical trans is borrowed from Latin trāns, meaning “on the other side of”. en.wiktionary.org
- Chemical trans contrasts with cis. acdlabs.com
- Cis describes specified atoms or groups on the same side of a reference plane; their size does not define the relationship. acdlabs.com
- A carbon–carbon double bond cannot rotate freely: rotation requires breaking and re-forming its π bond. openstax.org
- The cis/trans arrangement changes molecular shape and properties. chemed.chem.purdue.edu
- Trans fats in partially hydrogenated oils are named for their trans double-bond configuration. fda.gov
- 3Short for transmission: the gearbox that carries power from a vehicle's engine to its wheels.
Check the trans fluid before you decide the whole gearbox is shot.
He rebuilt the trans himself over two weekends in the garage.
Note
Garage and car-forum talk uses it for the gearbox. It often stands before another noun, as in trans fluid: Gary S. Callison's 1998 advice for a gearbox that starts losing gears is to "first check the trans fluid level, then panic". Its plural, transes, is the one the transaction clipping uses too.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Gary S. Callison gave the quoted advice in 1998. en.wiktionary.org
- The quotation is exact and concerns a transmission starting to lose gears. en.wiktionary.org
- 4On or relating to the side of the Golgi apparatus farther from the endoplasmic reticulum.
Newly made enzymes collect on the trans side of the Golgi before being sorted.
Cargo is sorted in the trans Golgi network before it is shipped out.
Oppositecis
Note
This is the shipping side of the Golgi. Material arrives at the opposite face, the one nearer the endoplasmic reticulum, is modified as it moves through the stack, and leaves from the trans side in vesicles bound for the cell surface, for lysosomes or for secretion. Cell biologists call the sorting zone on this face the trans Golgi network.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The trans face is the shipping or exit side of the Golgi. histology.leeds.ac.uk
- Material enters at the opposite, cis face, which is nearer the endoplasmic reticulum. openstax.org
- Cargo is modified during passage through the Golgi stack. cellandmolecularbiology.pressbooks.tru.ca
- Cargo leaves the trans side in vesicles destined for the cell surface, lysosomes, or secretion. en.wikipedia.org
- The sorting region at the trans face is called the trans Golgi network. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Less common meanings
- 5Short for transaction: a payment, trade, deal, or group of database operations treated as one unit.
The clerk asked for the trans number at the bottom of my receipt so she could look up the refund.
Bank statements often list the trans date beside the posting date, and the two can differ by a day or two.
Note
The clipping turns up wherever transaction has to be written short, in records of payments and transfers of funds or in database work, where a trans either completes or does nothing at all. As a noun it takes the plural transes, which keeps it apart from the plural of tran.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Trans is a clipping of transaction. en.wiktionary.org
- A database transaction has an all-or-nothing effect. postgresql.org
- The noun trans, meaning transaction, has the plural transes. en.wiktionary.org
- Tran has the distinct plural trans. en.wiktionary.org
- 6To cross gender, sex or a similar divide, passing from one side of it to the other.
Similarcross
Note
In gender studies the verb treats trans as a crossing and takes the border as its object: Trystan Cotten's Transgender Migrations writes of bodies "transing gender (and other) borders", and Finn Enke pairs it with crossed, as in "crossed, or transed, gender". Outside academic writing it is mostly playful, and it is distinct from the slang verb for becoming trans.
- 7An informal word for a trans person, used sometimes as a joke and sometimes as an insult.
- 8In humorous or mocking online slang, to become transgender or cause someone to become transgender.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
English took trāns ("on the other side of") from Latin. Très is a doublet.
A shortening of transgender or transsexual, words that go back ultimately to Latin trāns.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Trans is a shortening of transgender or transsexual. en.wiktionary.org
- Transgender contains the prefix trans-. en.wiktionary.org
- Transsexual contains the prefix trans-. en.wiktionary.org
- Both words ultimately derive their trans- element from Latin. en.wikipedia.org