transgressive

/tɹænzˈɡɹɛsɪv/adjective, noun

transgressive is an adjective meaning “Involving transgression; that passes beyond some acceptable limit; sinful” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-R-A-N-S-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does transgressive mean?

adjective

1
Involving transgression; that passes beyond some acceptable limit; sinful.
2
Going beyond generally accepted boundaries; violating usual practice, subversive.

noun

1
A kind of verb expressing a concurrently proceeding or following action, often found in Balto-Slavic languages.
2
A person who transgresses or breaks social rules.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce transgressive?

/tɹænzˈɡɹɛsɪv/
/tɹɑːnzˈɡɹɛsɪv/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Forms of transgressive

more transgressive comparative
most transgressive superlative
transgressives plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is transgressive?

Transgressive appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 58,063rd most frequent word form in the list.

transgressive0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Transgressive in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
French	transgressif (involving transgression)
German	grenzüberschreitend, übergriffig (involving transgression), sich regelwidrig verhaltend (going beyond generally accepted boundaries), Transgressiv (Modus transgressivus, Transgressivus) (a verb form)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does transgressive come from?

From transgress + -ive.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).