# transit

Pronunciation: say "TRAN-zit" /ˈtɹæn.zɪt/

## Noun

1. The movement of people or goods from one place to another, especially on a public transportation system, or the vehicles used for it.
   - Simple: The moving of people or goods from place to place, often by bus or train.
   - _The shipment was damaged somewhere in transit between the two depots._
   - _Reliable transit lets commuters leave their cars at home._
2. Passage from one side or point to another, whether over, across, or through something.
   - Simple: The act of moving over, across, or through something.
   - _The convoy's transit across the desert took three days._
   - _Heavy snow delayed the climbers' transit over the ridge._
3. 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. *(Canada, US)*
   - Simple: Buses, trains, and other shared rides that anyone can pay to use.
   - _Investment in transit helped cut downtown traffic._
   - _Without good transit, low-income workers struggle to reach jobs._
6. 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.
   - Simple: The moment when one space object passes in front of a larger one, as seen from where you stand.
   - _Astronomers traveled to remote islands to observe the transit of Venus._
   - _Each transit of the planet across its star dims the light we measure._
8. An instrument used in surveying to measure angles both horizontally and vertically, much like a theodolite.
   - Simple: A tool that surveyors use to measure angles up, down, and side to side.
   - _The crew sighted through the transit to mark the property corners._
   - _An older brass transit still sat in the engineer's field kit._
9. The movement of a celestial body through a section of the horoscope, or in relation to an important point in someone's birth chart.
   - Simple: The movement of a planet through part of your star chart, or past an important point in it.
   - _She blamed her restlessness on a long Saturn transit._
   - _A favorable transit through her career sector seemed like the right moment to launch._
10. A Ford-built panel van, used especially for carrying goods, tools, or a work crew. *(Ireland, UK)*
   - Simple: A large van made by Ford, often used to carry tools, goods, or workers.
   - _A battered white transit was parked outside the job site all week._
   - _They squeezed the whole band's equipment into a single transit._
12. An imaginary line between two objects of known position; when a navigator sees one object directly in front of the other, the navigator's position lies along the line.
   - Simple: An imaginary line between two known points. When one lines up right behind the other, you are standing on that line.
   - _The pilot stayed on the transit to keep clear of the shoals._
   - _A lighthouse and a headland formed a reliable transit into the anchorage._

## Verb

4. To travel across, over, or through something, such as a region, passage, or body of water.
   - Simple: To move over, across, or through something.
   - _Freight trains transit the mountain pass several times a day._
   - _The expedition transited the frozen strait in record time._
5. To move passengers or freight from place to place, especially in buses, trains, or other public transportation.
   - Simple: To carry people or goods from one place to another, often by bus or train.
   - _Ferries transit commuters across the bay each morning._
   - _The agency transits supplies to remote villages by truck._
7. To pass across the disk of a larger celestial body, or across the observer's meridian.
   - Simple: To pass across the bright face of a larger space body, as seen from a given spot.
   - _Venus will transit only once more this century._
   - _The tiny moon transited across the face of the gas giant._
11. To rotate a surveying instrument about its horizontal axis so as to reverse the telescope's direction.
   - Simple: To turn a surveying tool over on its side axis so it points the other way.
   - _The crew transited the telescope and sighted the line again._
   - _Surveyors transit the instrument to cancel out small alignment errors._
13. To carry another network's or customer's communications traffic to and from third parties for a fee, rather than exchanging it free under a peering arrangement.
   - Simple: To carry another network's data traffic for a fee, instead of swapping it for free.
   - _Backbone operators transit traffic for providers that lack global reach._
   - _Smaller ISPs pay larger ones to transit their data across the world._

## Origin

From French, from Latin transire ("to go across, pass through"), which combines trans ("over") and ire ("to go").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/transit (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).