traverse
/tɹəˈvɝs/ noun B2- A route used in mountaineering, specifically rock climbing, in which the descent occurs by a different route than the ascent.
- A series of points, with angles and distances measured between, traveled around a subject, usually for use as "control" i.e. angular reference system for later surveying work.
- Something that thwarts or obstructs. · He will succeed, as long as there are no unlucky traverses not under his control.
- A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building.
- 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", i.e. without what follows).
- The zigzag course or courses made by a ship in passing from one place to another; a compound course.
- A line lying across a figure or other lines; a transversal.
- In trench warfare, a defensive trench built to prevent enfilade.
Plural traverses
From the library
By means of the two windows looking into the street, Albert could see all that passed; the sight of what is going on is necessary to young men, who always want to see the world traverse their horizon, even if that horizon is only a public thoroughfare.
“The trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the body was found are those which run from west to east, some being purely Metropolitan, and some from Willesden and outlying junctions.
Almost before the key had turned in the lock, and before the departing steps of the jailer had died away in the long corridor he had to traverse, Dantès, whose restless anxiety concerning his friend left him no desire to touch the food brought him, hurried back to the abbé’s chamber, and raising the stone by pressing his head against it, was soon beside the sick man’s couch.
The ubiquitous glow of satellite navigation has irrevocably transformed our fundamental relationship with the physical spaces we traverse daily.
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