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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



... drifting downward and carefully scanning the shore, as strange that nothing had been seen of Ashman. Enough time had now elapsed for him to traverse the intervening distance several times, and it was to be supposed that he would have put in an appearance without delay, provided he was ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... of the country disappears; trees and plants stripped of their leaves and reduced to their naked boughs and stems cause the dreary image of winter to succeed in an instant to the rich scenery of spring. When these clouds of locusts take their flight, to surmount any obstacles, or to traverse more rapidly a desert soil, the heavens may literally be said to be ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... explored. Later on an engineer officer stated that he did not think our work had been scientific; and I assured him that I did not doubt that he was right, for I had never before seen a trench, excepting those we captured from the Spaniards, or heard of a traverse, save as I vaguely remembered reading about them in books. For such work as we were engaged in, however, the problem of intrenchment was comparatively simple, and the work we did proved entirely adequate. No man in ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... not appear that the Hinayanist influence which became predominant in Camboja extended to Champa. That influence came from Siam and before it had time to traverse Camboja, Champa was already in the grip of the Annamites, whose religion with the rest of their civilization came from China rather than India. Chinese culture and writing spread to the Cambojan frontier ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... under the advancing tide of spring. Philip paid no attention at the time: he was thinking what to say next. But his eyes had registered the beauty, and next March he did not forget that the road to Monteriano must traverse innumerable flowers. ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster


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