traverse

noun

1. A route used in mountaineering, specifically rock climbing, in which the descent occurs by a different route than the ascent.
2. 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.

   “At the entrance of the king, the first traverse was drawn, and the lower descent of the mountain discovered, which was the pendant of a hill to life, with divers boscages and grovets upon the steep or hanging grounds thereof.”

3. (obsolete)A screen or partition.

   “Than sholde ye see there pressynge in a pace / Of one and other that wolde this lady see, / Whiche sat behynde a traves of sylke fyne, / Of golde of tessew the fynest that myghte be […]”

   “At the entrance of the king, / The first traverse was drawn.”

4. Something that thwarts or obstructs.

   “He will succeed, as long as there are no unlucky traverses not under his control.”

5. A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building.
6. 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).
7. The zigzag course or courses made by a ship in passing from one place to another; a compound course.
8. A line lying across a figure or other lines; a transversal.
9. In trench warfare, a defensive trench built to prevent enfilade.

   “At night, when the Federal guns slowed their fire, the men created new traverses and bombproofs.”

10. A traverse board.

    “The whole care of the vessel rested, therefore, upon me, and I was obliged to direct her by my former experience, not being able to work a traverse.”

verb

1. (transitive)To travel across, to go through, to pass through, particularly under difficult conditions.

   “He will have to traverse the mountain to get to the other side.”

   “What seas you travers'd, and what fields you fought! / Your country's peace how oft, how dearly bought!”

   “Here the line is joined by the Colne Valley branch, and both tracks are carried into Haverhill station upon a high embankment from which the town can be seen on the south side. The twin tracks, after traversing a scissors crossover, become the down and up roads through the station, which possesses an extensive goods yard.”

   “The journey is worth an article in itself, but all I can give is a flavour of a railway which traverses a bleak but dramatic coastline that's regularly battered by the elements - especially around Parton, where the line is constantly threatened by the sea.”

2. (transitive)To visit all parts of; to explore thoroughly.

   “to traverse all nodes in a network”

3. To lay in a cross direction; to cross.

   “The parts should be often traversed, or crossed, by the flowing of the folds.”

4. To rotate a gun around a vertical axis to bear upon a military target.

   “to traverse a cannon”

5. To climb or descend a steep hill at a wide angle (relative to the slope).
6. To (make a cutting, an incline) across the gradients of a sloped face at safe rate.

   “the road traversed the face of the ridge as the right-of-way climbed the mountain”

   “The last run, weary, I traversed the descents in no hurry to reach the lodge.”

7. To act against; to thwart or obstruct.

   “The well meaning Prieſt ſuffered him to deceive himſelf, fully determined to traverſe his views, inſtead of ſeconding them.”

   “I cannot but […] admit the force of this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse.”

8. To pass over and view; to survey carefully.

   “My purpose is to […] traverse the nature, principles, and properties of this detestable vice—ingratitude.”

9. To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood.

   “to traverse a board”

10. To deny formally.

    “Without their coſt, you terminate the cauſe; / And ſave th' expence of long litigious laws: / Where ſuits are travers'd; and ſo little won, / That he who conquers, is but laſt undone: […]”

11. (intransitive)To use the motions of opposition or counteraction.

adv

1. athwart; across; crosswise

adj

1. Lying across; being in a direction across something else.

   “paths cut with traverse trenches”

   “Oak […] being strong in all positions, may be better trusted in cross and traverse work.”

   “the ridges of the fallow field lay trauerse”

name

1. A surname from French.