TRAVERSE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does traverse mean? 

• TRAVERSE (noun)
  The noun TRAVERSE has 4 senses:

1. a horizontal beam that extends across something

2. a horizontal crosspiece across a window or separating a door from a window over it

3. taking a zigzag path on skis

4. travel across

  Familiarity information: TRAVERSE used as a noun is uncommon.

• TRAVERSE (verb)
  The verb TRAVERSE has 3 senses:

1. travel across or pass over

2. to cover or extend over an area or time period

3. deny formally (an allegation of fact by the opposing party) in a legal suit

  Familiarity information: TRAVERSE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRAVERSE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A horizontal beam that extends across something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

crossbeam; crosspiece; trave; traverse

Hypernyms ("traverse" is a kind of...):

beam (long thick piece of wood or metal or concrete, etc., used in construction)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A horizontal crosspiece across a window or separating a door from a window over it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

transom; traverse

Hypernyms ("traverse" is a kind of...):

crosspiece (a transverse brace)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Taking a zigzag path on skis

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

traversal; traverse

Hypernyms ("traverse" is a kind of...):

crossing (traveling across)

Holonyms ("traverse" is a part of...):

skiing (a sport in which participants must travel on skis)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Travel across

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

traversal; traverse

Hypernyms ("traverse" is a kind of...):

travel; traveling; travelling (the act of going from one place to another)

Derivation:

traverse (travel across or pass over)

• TRAVERSE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they traverse    ... he / she / it traverses   
Past simple: traversed   
Past participle: traversed   
-ing form: traversing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Travel across or pass over

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

cover; cross; cut across; cut through; get across; get over; pass over; track; traverse

Context example:

The caravan covered almost 100 miles each day

Hypernyms (to "traverse" is one way to...):

pass (go across or through)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "traverse"):

tramp (cross on foot)

stride (cover or traverse by taking long steps)

walk (traverse or cover by walking)

crisscross (cross in a pattern, often random)

ford (cross a river where it's shallow)

bridge (cross over on a bridge)

jaywalk (cross the road at a red light)

drive; take (proceed along in a vehicle)

course (move swiftly through or over)

hop (traverse as if by a short airplane trip)

Sentence frames:

Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

traversal; traverse (travel across)

traverser (someone who moves or passes across)

Sense 2

Meaning:

To cover or extend over an area or time period

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

cross; span; sweep; traverse

Context example:

The novel spans three centuries

Hypernyms (to "traverse" is one way to...):

continue; cover; extend (span an interval of distance, space or time)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Deny formally (an allegation of fact by the opposing party) in a legal suit

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

deny; traverse

Domain category:

law; practice of law (the learned profession that is mastered by graduate study in a law school and that is responsible for the judicial system)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

A defined path with physical dimensions through which an object or substance may traverse.

(Lane, NCI Thesaurus)

Curiosity discovered them in soil and rock samples it took as it traversed within Gale Crater, the site of ancient lakes and groundwater systems on Mars.

(Asteroids, Hydrogen Make Great Recipe for Life on Mars, NASA)

Immediately beneath the cliff there grew a considerable patch of high bamboo, like that which we had traversed in our journey.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has traversed the orbit of Neptune.

(NASA Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Crosses Neptune's Orbit, NASA)

The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I traversed the streets without any clear conception of where I was or what I was doing.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Another time the brown wanderer succeeded in traversing half the length of California, all of Oregon, and most of Washington, before he was picked up and returned "Collect."

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

He looked along the airy path he must traverse, and then down to the deck.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

As the transduced PBLs traverse the patient's circulation, they can bind to NY-ESO-1-overexpressing tumor cells.

(Autologous Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes Cotransduced with Retroviral Vectors Encoding Inducible IL-12 and Anti-NY-ESO-1 TCR, NCI Thesaurus)