transitive
/ˈtɹænzɪtɪv/adjective, noun
transitive is spelled T-R-A-N-S-I-T-I-V-E: 10 letters. It appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 38,863rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “intransitive vs transitive” about 880 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, transitive means “Making a transit or passage” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in transitive?
| Letters | 10: T-R-A-N-S-I-T-I-V-E |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 38,863rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How common is transitive?
Transitive appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 38,863rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce transitive?
- /ˈtɹænzɪtɪv/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-transitive.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with transitive
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of transitive
- transitives plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does transitive mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Making a transit or passage.
- 2
Affected by transference of signification.
- 3
Taking a direct object or objects.
The English verb "to notice" is a transitive verb, because we say things like "She noticed a problem".
- 4
Having the property that if an element a is related to b and b is related to c, then a is necessarily related to c.
"Is an ancestor of" is a transitive relation: if Alice is an ancestor of Bob, and Bob is an ancestor of Carol, then Alice is an ancestor of Carol.
- 5
Such that, for any two elements of the acted-upon set, some group element maps the first to the second.
- 6
Such that, for any two vertices there exists an automorphism which maps one to the other.
- 7
Of a set of dice: not having the intransitive property.
noun
- 1
A transitive verb.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate transitive?
Wiktionary records 4 abbreviations of transitive: a., tr, tr., trans..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Transitive in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | transitivo, transitório |
| Spanish | transitivo |
| French | transitif |
| German | transitiv |
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 transitive come from?
From Latin trānsitīvus, from trānsitus, from trāns (“across”) + itus, from eō (“to go”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).