Having the power of making a transit, or passage. Bacon. [1913 Webster]
Effected by transference of signification. [1913 Webster]
"By far the greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words depend on casual and unaccountable caprices of the feelings or the fancy." [1913 Webster]
Passing over to an object; expressing an action which is not limited to the agent or subject, but which requires an object to complete the sense; as, a transitive verb, for example, he holds the book. [1913 Webster]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

transitive, adj.
1 Gram. (of a verb or sense of a verb) that takes a direct object (whether expressed or implied), e.g. saw in saw the donkey, saw that she was ill (opp. INTRANSITIVE).
2 Logic (of a relation) such as to be valid for any two members of a sequence if it is valid for every pair of successive members.

Derivative

transitively adv. transitiveness n. transitivity n.

Etymology

LL transitivus (as TRANSIT)

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THESAURUS

transitive

adjectival, adverbial, attributive, auxiliary, auxiliary verb, brittle, capricious, changeable, conjunctive, copula, copulative, correct, corruptible, deciduous, defective verb, deponent verb, dying, ephemeral, evanescent, fading, fickle, finite verb, fleeting, flitting, fly-by-night, flying, formal, fragile, frail, fugacious, fugitive, functional, glossematic, grammatic, impermanent, impersonal verb, impetuous, impulsive, inconstant, infinitive, insubstantial, intransitive, intransitive verb, linking, linking verb, modal auxiliary, momentary, mortal, mutable, neuter verb, nominal, nondurable, nonpermanent, participial, passing, perishable, postpositional, prepositional, pronominal, short-lived, structural, substantive, syntactic, tagmemic, temporal, temporary, transient, transitory, undurable, unenduring, unstable, verb, verb phrase, verbal, volatile

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ROGET THESAURUS

transitive

Transientness

N transience, transientness, evanescence, impermanence, fugacity, caducity, mortality, span, nine days' wonder, bubble, Mayfly, spurt, flash in the pan, temporary arrangement, interregnum, velocity, suddenness, changeableness, transient, transient boarder, transient guest, transient, transitory, transitive, passing, evanescent, fleeting, cursory, short-lived, ephemeral, flying, fugacious, fugitive, shifting, slippery, spasmodic, instantaneous, momentaneous, temporal, temporary, provisional, provisory, deciduous, perishable, mortal, precarious, unstable, insecure, impermanent, brief, quick, brisk, extemporaneous, summary, pressed for time, sudden, momentary, temporarily, pro tempore, for the moment, for a time, awhile, en passant, in transitu, in a short time, soon, briefly, at short notice, on the point of, on the eve of, in articulo, between cup and lip, one's days are numbered, the time is up, here today and gone tomorrow, non semper erit aestas, eheu! fugaces labuntur anni, sic transit gloria mundi, a schoolboy's tale, the wonder of the hour!, dum loquimur fugerit invidia aetas, fugit hora, all that is transitory is but an illusion.

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