transverse

Etymology

Late Middle English, from Latin trānsversus (“turned across; going or lying across or crosswise”). Doublet of transversal.

adj

1. Situated or lying across; side to side, relative to some defined "forward" direction; perpendicular or slanted relative to the "forward" direction; identified with movement across areas.
   The units have transverse seats, two and three astride the passageway with single or double longitudinal seats alongside the two entrance vestibules in each car. 1960 November, “New electric multiple-units for British Railways: Glasgow Suburban”, in Trains Illustrated, page 660
   Unlike the older trains, the new units have walk-through carriages and longitudinal rather than transverse seating. February 22 2023, Paul Stephen, “TfL reveals first of new B23s for Docklands Light Railway”, in RAIL, number 977, page 12
2. (anatomy) Made at right angles to the long axis of the body.
3. (geometry) (of an intersection) Not tangent, so that a nondegenerate angle is formed between the two things intersecting. (For the general definition, see w:Transversality (mathematics).)
4. (obsolete) Not in direct line of descent; collateral.

noun

1. Anything that is transverse or athwart.
2. (geometry) The longer, or transverse, axis of an ellipse.

verb

1. To lie or run across; to cross.
2. To traverse or thwart.
3. To overturn.
   And so long shall her censures, when justly passed, have their effect: how then can they be altered or transversed, suspended or superseded, by a temporal government, that must vanish and come to nothing? 1702, Charles Leslie, The Case of the Regale and of the Pontificate Stated, page 226
4. To alter or transform.
   In love, it is said, all stratagems are fair, and many little ladies transverse the axiom by applying it to discover the secrets of their friends. 1859, George Meredith, chapter 13, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, page 68
5. (obsolete) To change from prose into verse, or from verse into prose.
   Bayes: Why, thus, Sir; nothing so easy when understood; I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere, for that's all one, if there be any wit in't, as there is no book but has some, I transverse it; that is, if it be prose, put it into verse, (but that takes up some time) and if it be verse, put it into prose. 1671, George Villiers, The Rehearsal, published 1770, act 1, scene 1, page 12