transit

Pluraltransits (some meanings)

Formstransits, transiting, transited

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The movement of people or goods from one place to another, especially on a public transportation system, or the vehicles used for it.

   The shipment was damaged somewhere in transit between the two depots.

   Reliable transit lets commuters leave their cars at home.

   Similartransport

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Passage from one side or point to another, whether over, across, or through something.

   The convoy's transit across the desert took three days.

   Heavy snow delayed the climbers' transit over the ridge.

   Similarpassage, crossing, journey

   Note

   The root meaning shows through plainly: French, from Latin transire, "to go across," built from trans "over" and ire "to go." The noun can cross ideas as easily as ground. Edmund Burke wrote in 1790 of France "in the transit from one form of government to another," while Sheridan Le Fanu could speak of "the transit of the wall" for someone's way over it. It usually takes of, across or over.

3. 3
   nounCanadaUSuncountable

   Shared transportation that members of the public can use for a fare, rather than relying on private cars; a short form of public transit or mass transit.

   Investment in transit helped cut downtown traffic.

   Without good transit, low-income workers struggle to reach jobs.

   Similartransport, transportation

   Note

   A North American usage in which the bare noun, with no article, names the whole system: I always take transit to work, much as one takes the bus. Where British English says public transport, Americans and Canadians often say transit alone. They may also spell it out as public transit or mass transit when the context needs it.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To travel across, over, or through something, such as a region, passage, or body of water.

   Freight trains transit the mountain pass several times a day.

   The expedition transited the frozen strait in record time.

   Similarcross, traverse

   Note

   The verb keeps a single t in its inflected forms: transits, transiting, transited, never transitting. It usually takes the thing crossed as a direct object, so trains transit a pass and expeditions transit a strait, with no preposition needed. Next to cross or pass through, it has a more technical, official sound.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To move passengers or freight from place to place, especially in buses, trains, or other public transportation.

   Ferries transit commuters across the bay each morning.

   The agency transits supplies to remote villages by truck.

   Similartransport, convey, carry, ferry

   Note

   Here the verb becomes causative. Latin transire meant "to go across," but in this use something else is made to go across. The object is the load, not the route: a ferry transits commuters, while in the plain "pass through" meaning a ship transits the canal itself. To tell the two apart, look at what follows the verb. This is also the verb partner of the noun for conveyance.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   In astronomy, the passage of a celestial body or other object across the face of a larger body, as of Venus across the sun, or across an observer's meridian.

   Astronomers traveled to remote islands to observe the transit of Venus.

   Each transit of the planet across its star dims the light we measure.

   Note

   Astronomy uses the word for two different crossings. A star or planet transits the meridian when it crosses the observer's north–south line, which makes the moment a precise timing mark. A planet or moon transits a disk when it passes in front of a larger body, as Venus does across the Sun. Such crossings were long used to work out longitude and distances in space. The verb is its intransitive partner.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   To pass across the disk of a larger celestial body, or across the observer's meridian.

   Venus will transit only once more this century.

   The tiny moon transited across the face of the gas giant.

   Similarpass, cross

   Note

   The verb works without an object: a planet simply transits. If the body or line it crosses is named at all, it follows with across, as in the moon transited across the face of the gas giant. Astronomers use the verb for the same two crossings as the noun, the meridian and the disk of a larger body.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   An instrument used in surveying to measure angles both horizontally and vertically, much like a theodolite.

   The crew sighted through the transit to mark the property corners.

   An older brass transit still sat in the engineer's field kit.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   The movement of a celestial body through a section of the horoscope, or in relation to an important point in someone's birth chart.

   She blamed her restlessness on a long Saturn transit.

   A favorable transit through her career sector seemed like the right moment to launch.

   Note

   Here the sky is read against a fixed map: an astrologer's transit is where a planet is now, set against where it stood at someone's birth. That is why transits are named by planet, as in a Saturn transit, and by the section or point of the chart they touch. Nothing need pass in front of anything, unlike the astronomer's transit.

10. 10
    nounIrelandUKcountable

    A Ford-built panel van, used especially for carrying goods, tools, or a work crew.

    A battered white transit was parked outside the job site all week.

    They squeezed the whole band's equipment into a single transit.

    Note

    A brand name turned common noun in Britain and Ireland, and often written lowercase, as in a road report from Birkenhead of a "white transit" swerving into a junction. It names the van as a type of vehicle rather than a model. Beware the transatlantic clash: an American hearing transit thinks of buses and trains, as in the North American "public transport" sense.

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