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Traverse   /trˈævərs/  /trəvˈərs/   Listen
noun
Traverse  n.  
1.
Anything that traverses, or crosses. Specifically:
(a)
Something that thwarts, crosses, or obstructs; a cross accident; as, he would have succeeded, had it not been for unlucky traverses not under his control.
(b)
A barrier, sliding door, movable screen, curtain, or the like. "Men drinken and the travers draw anon." "And the entrance of the king, The first traverse was drawn."
(c)
(Arch.) A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building.
(d)
(Fort.) A work thrown up to intercept an enfilade, or reverse fire, along exposed passage, or line of work.
(e)
(Law) A formal denial of some matter of fact alleged by the opposite party in any stage of the pleadings. The technical words introducing a traverse are absque hoc, without this; that is, without this which follows.
(f)
(Naut.) The zigzag course or courses made by a ship in passing from one place to another; a compound course.
(g)
(Geom.) A line lying across a figure or other lines; a transversal.
(h)
(Surv.) A line surveyed across a plot of ground.
(i)
(Gun.) The turning of a gun so as to make it point in any desired direction.
2.
A turning; a trick; a subterfuge. (Obs.)
To work a traverse or To solve a traverse (Naut.), to reduce a series of courses or distances to an equivalent single one; to calculate the resultant of a traverse.
Traverse board (Naut.), a small board hung in the steerage, having the points of the compass marked on it, and for each point as many holes as there are half hours in a watch. It is used for recording the courses made by the ship in each half hour, by putting a peg in the corresponding hole.
Traverse jury (Law), a jury that tries cases; a petit jury.
Traverse sailing (Naut.), a sailing by compound courses; the method or process of finding the resulting course and distance from a series of different shorter courses and distances actually passed over by a ship.
Traverse table.
(a)
(Naut. & Surv.) A table by means of which the difference of latitude and departure corresponding to any given course and distance may be found by inspection. It contains the lengths of the two sides of a right-angled triangle, usually for every quarter of a degree of angle, and for lengths of the hypothenuse, from 1 to 100.
(b)
(Railroad) A platform with one or more tracks, and arranged to move laterally on wheels, for shifting cars, etc., from one line of track to another.


verb
Traverse  v. t.  (past & past part. traversed; pres. part. traversing)  
1.
To lay in a cross direction; to cross. "The parts should be often traversed, or crossed, by the flowing of the folds."
2.
To cross by way of opposition; to thwart with obstacles; to obstruct; to bring to naught. "I can not but... admit the force of this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse."
3.
To wander over; to cross in traveling; as, to traverse the habitable globe. "What seas you traversed, and what fields you fought."
4.
To pass over and view; to survey carefully. "My purpose is to traverse the nature, principles, and properties of this detestable vice ingratitude."
5.
(Gun.) To turn to the one side or the other, in order to point in any direction; as, to traverse a cannon.
6.
(Carp.) To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood; as, to traverse a board.
7.
(Law) To deny formally, as what the opposite party has alleged. When the plaintiff or defendant advances new matter, he avers it to be true, and traverses what the other party has affirmed. To traverse an indictment or an office is to deny it. "And save the expense of long litigious laws, Where suits are traversed, and so little won That he who conquers is but last undone."
To traverse a yard (Naut.), to brace it fore and aft.


Traverse  v. i.  
1.
To use the posture or motions of opposition or counteraction, as in fencing. "To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse."
2.
To turn, as on a pivot; to move round; to swivel; as, the needle of a compass traverses; if it does not traverse well, it is an unsafe guide.
3.
To tread or move crosswise, as a horse that throws his croup to one side and his head to the other.


adjective
Traverse  adj.  Lying across; being in a direction across something else; as, paths cut with traverse trenches. "Oak... being strong in all positions, may be better trusted in cross and traverse work." "The ridges of the fallow field traverse."
Traverse drill (Mach.), a machine tool for drilling slots, in which the work or tool has a lateral motion back and forth; also, a drilling machine in which the spindle holder can be adjusted laterally.


adverb
Traverse  adv.  Athwart; across; crosswise.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Traverse" Quotes from Famous Books



... the clay part of Kent, and my bungalow stood on the edge of an old sea cliff and stared across the flats of Romney Marsh at the sea. In very wet weather the place is almost inaccessible, and I have heard that at times the postman used to traverse the more succulent portions of his route with boards upon his feet. I never saw him doing so, but I can quite imagine it. Outside the doors of the few cottages and houses that make up the present village big birch besoms are stuck, to wipe off the worst of the clay, which will give some idea of ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... unusual length followed. The noise of the ship going through the water, and the beat of the engines, assumed the monopoly of sound. Doe and I were thinking of the thorny and troublesome path of confession, which in a few days we must traverse. And Monty indicated what his thoughts were by the remark with which he prepared to close that night's ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... inquest was held. It was near the scene of the tragedy, and occasionally a man would detach himself from the slow, dawdling, depressed-looking group of mountaineers who loitered in the open space beneath the loft, and traverse the scant distance down the bridle-path to gaze at the spot where the stranger's body had lain, whence it had been conveyed to the nearest shelter at hand, the old barn, where the coroner's jury were even now engaged in ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... "Dolores, my traverse is run," whispered Jabez. The effort all but stole his breath. He paused; then summoning all the tremendous will that had dominated his frame when surging with strength, he told what he had to say in short sentences, nursing the flickering spark to force his speech. "Never leave here, girl. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the rock was but the antechamber, as it were, to a larger cavern, where twenty men might sit or lie at ease; and the entrance to this larger place was through a passage so narrow and low that none who did not know the secret would think it possible to traverse it. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green


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