traverse

1. 1.

   a horizontal beam that extends across something

   Synonymstravecrossbeamcrosspiece

   Broaderbeam
2. 2.

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

   Synonymstransom

   Broadercrosspiece
3. 3.

   taking a zigzag path on skis

   Synonymstraversal

   Broadercrossing

   Part ofskiing
4. 4.

   travel across

   Synonymstraversal

   Broadertravel

1. 1.

   travel across or pass over

   “The caravan covered almost 100 miles each day”

   Synonymstrackcovercrosspass overget overget acrosscut throughcut across

   Broaderpass

   Narrowertrampstridewalkcrisscrossfordbridgejaywalkdrivecoursehop
2. 2.

   to cover or extend over an area or time period

   “Rivers traverse the valley floor”

   “The parking lot spans 3 acres”

   “The novel spans three centuries”

   Synonymscrossspansweep

   Broadercover
3. 3.

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

   Synonymsdeny

   law

Other forms of traverse

plural

traverses·

past tense

traversed·

present participle

traversing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about traverse

What does traverse mean?

traverse means "a horizontal beam that extends across something". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in traverse?

traverse has 2 syllables: trav-erse. The stress falls on "trav". In IPA it is /ˈtɹævɚs/.

What is another word for traverse?

Close synonyms include trave, crossbeam, crosspiece, transom, traversal. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is traverse a common word?

traverse is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.