释义 |
▪ I. transit, n.|ˈtrɑːnsɪt, ˈtræns-, -nz-| Also 5 trancyte, 5–7 transite. [ad. L. transit-us (-ū stem), verbal n. from transīre to cross, f. trans across + īre to go. So It. transito, whence Fr. transit (17th c.).] 1. a. The action or fact of passing across or through; passage or journey from one place or point to another. Often in phrase in transit, L. in transitu.
c1440Gesta Rom. ii. 12 (Add. MS.) Above oure hede there is a transite of men [Harl. passage and goyng of peple]. 1716M. Davies Athen. Brit. II. 171 Henry..of Huntington.., who writ ten Books Historiæ Anglorum, from the Transit and Introit of the Saxons hither, to the Year 1153. 1766W. Digby in Jesse Selwyn & Contemp. (1843) II. 12, I lay at Gloucester in my transit. 1833Ritchie Wand. Loire 27 Sometimes..the transit from Nantes to Orleans takes two months! 1841Catlin N. Amer. Ind. xlvi. II. 87, I..made a transit across the prairies. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. vii. (1856) 50 Of the voyages to Lancaster Sound..the transit of the middle ice is the essential feature. 1877Black Green Past. xxxii, In our rapid transit from place to place. †b. concr. A way for passing, a passage.
c1440Promp. Parv. 499/2 Trancyte, where menn walke, transitus. c. The passage or carriage of persons or goods from one place to another.
1800Colquhoun Comm. Thames viii. 259 Property..stationary on the Quays or in transit on the River. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xiii. III. 254 While he governed, no prohibition..impeded the transit of commodities from any part of the island to any other. 1866Rogers Agric. & Prices I. xx. 504 The cost of carriage. Occasionally..this is charged in the value given, the transit being..undertaken frequently by common carriers. 1870Yeats Nat. Hist. Comm. 62 The means of transit are so bad, that much good corn is left to rot upon the ground. (b) spec. Public passenger transport; freq. attrib. Chiefly N. Amer.
1873, etc. [see rapid-transit s.v. rapid a. 6]. 1967Boston Sunday Globe 23 Apr. 8/2 Legislature to launch a 10-year, $300 million urban transit program. 1971Rand Daily Mail 27 Mar. 11/1 White bus drivers employed by a transit authority in an unnamed South African city. 1979Tucson (Arizona) Citizen 20 Sept. 1 c/3 The Canadian city has good mass transit. d. transf. A place at which a river may be crossed; a crossing. rare.
1852Grote Greece ii. lxix. IX. 39 A..flourishing town, a centre of commerce enriched by the important ford or transit of the river Euphrates close to it. 2. fig. (in various senses.) A passing across; a transition or change; esp. the passage from this life to the next by death.
1657W. Morice Coena quasi κοινὴ, Diat. v. 237 There can be no such transite from one kinde of action to another. 1765H. Walpole Otranto iii. (1798) 50 To pray for her happy transit to a better life. 1810Knox & Jebb Corr. II. 19 The transit from autumn to winter. 1823Scott Quentin D. vi, Speak a word of comfort to him ere he make his transit, Trois-Eschelles. 1859Holland Gold F. xv. 182 Old men..whose work of life is..done, and who may in peace..sit down and wait their mysterious transit. 1871Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue §270 This verb made an early transit to the weak form. 3. Astrol. The passage of a planet across some special point or region of the zodiac.
[1621Burton Anat. Mel. i. ii. i. iv, If {saturn}, by his revolution, or transitus, shall offend any of those radicall promissors in his geniture.] 1671Salmon Syn. Med. i. xxix. 61 In Directions and Transits three things are to be considered; first the Significator, secondly the Promissor; thirdly the sign and house in which they happen. 1819J. Wilson Dict. Astrol. s.v., The transits of the {moonfq} are said to cause all the daily passing events of a man's life, as she transits the △, {star}, {square}, {opp}, or ☌, of any particular house. 4. Astron. a. The passage of an inferior planet (Mercury or Venus) across the sun's disk, or of a satellite or its shadow across the disk of a planet; formerly also applied to an occultation of a star or planet by the moon, or of a star by a planet.
1669Flamstead in Phil. Trans. IV. 1110 Let me desire those, who have fit..Instruments, to observe this Transit. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Transit, in Astronomy, signifies the passing of any Planet just by or under any Fixt Star; or of the Moon in particular, covering or moving close by any other Planet. 1769M. Cutler in Life, etc. (1888) I. 20 The 3d of this month happened the Transit of Venus over the sun's disk. 1769Cook Voy. r. World i. xiii. (1773) 137 On Thursday the 1st of June, the Saturday following being the day of the Transit, I dispatched Mr. Gore in the long-boat to Imao. 1829Chapters Phys. Sc. 398 The transits of Mercury and Venus are really eclipses of the sun. 1868Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens iii. ii. i. (ed. 3) 478 The value of the Sun's distance at present received has been deduced from the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769. 1910Whitaker's Almanack 88 Only Satellite IV [of Jupiter] will be visible at 2.30 a.m. February 24—Satellite II. being in transit, Satellite III. occulted, and Satellite I. eclipsed. transf.1859in Merc. Marine Mag. (1860) VII. 65 The Shoal first seen was in transit with Embleton Island, bearing N.E. 3/4E. b. The passage of a star or other celestial body across the meridian at its culmination.
1812Woodhouse Astron. viii. 48 Two successive transits of a star over the meridian. 1834M. Somerville Connex. Phys. Sc. vii. 61 While observing transits of the fixed stars across the meridian at Cayenne. c. Short for transit-circle, -compass, -instrument, or -theodolite: see 5. colloq.
1843Penny Cycl. XXV. 122/1 Transit, or Transit Instrument. Ibid. 122/2 Such an account of the transit as will enable any one to use it with tolerable success. 1879Newcomb & Holden Astron. 74 The meridian transit instrument, or briefly the ‘transit’. 1897Edin. Rev. July 66 The institution, furnished only with a transit when he took it in charge. 5. attrib. and Comb., usually in relation to the conveyance of goods and passengers, as transit-company, transit-depot, transit-line, transit-road, transit-room, transit-time, transit-traffic, transit-way; also transit camp, a camp for the temporary accommodation of servicemen awaiting posting, refugees, prisoners-of-war, etc.; transit-circle, an astronomical instrument consisting of a telescope carrying a large graduated circle, by which the right ascension and declination of a star may be determined by observation of it in transit (sense 4 b); a meridian-circle; transit-clock, a clock used in conjunction with a transit-instrument; transit-compass, an instrument, resembling a theodolite, used in surveying for the measurement of horizontal angles; transit-duty, a duty paid on goods passing through a country; transit-instrument, an astronomical telescope mounted on a fixed east-and-west axis, by which the time of the passage of a celestial body across the meridian may be determined; usually applied to one without a circle (cf. transit-circle); transit lounge, a waiting-room for transit passengers at an airport; transit man N. Amer., a surveyor who uses a transit-compass; transit-pass, a warrant to pass through a country without payment of duty; transit passenger, a passenger making a brief stop at an airport in transit to another destination; transit-theodolite = transit-compass; transit-trade, trade arising out of the passage of foreign goods through a country; transit visa, a visa permitting the holder to pass through a country but not to stay there. (See also sense 1 c).
1943G. Greene Ministry of Fear ii. ii. 144 The place was as comfortless as a *transit camp. 1946E. Linklater Private Angelo xiii. 151 [He] made his escape..from a transit camp for prisoners of war near Bari. 1956Wallis & Blair Thunder Above (1959) xi. 113 There were 25,000 East German refugees in West Berlin, living in transit camps built to accommodate 13,000. 1980D. Lodge How Far can you Go? i. 7 Purgatory was a kind of penitential transit camp on the way to the gates of Heaven.
1843Penny Cycl. XXV. 133/1 A *transit circle may be made to answer both purposes. 1897Edin. Rev. July 68 In 1851 a new transit circle, of great optical power and enormous mechanical stability, superseded Troughton's master⁓piece of 1812.
1843Penny Cycl. XXV. 130/1 To have a second clock called a journeyman, which strikes loudly and speaks as it were for the *transit clock.
1845R. Brown in Mem. ii. (1866) 28 We got into one of the *Transit Company's vans.
1887C. A. Moloney Forestry W. Afr. 248 The Public Works Department of each Colony offers a ready *transit-depot for such contributions.
1776Adam Smith W.N. v. ii. II. 515 In some small states duties..are imposed upon goods carried across the territory..from one foreign country to another. These are in some countries called *transit-duties. 1809State Papers in Ann. Reg. 697/1 The transit duties on the goods thus imported or exported.
1812Woodhouse Astron. vi. 32 It may be used as a *transit instrument: that is, the presence of a star on the meridian may be ascertained by it.
1894Hardy Life's Little Ironies 179 For South Wessex, the year [sc. 1851] formed in many ways an extraordinary chronological frontier or *transit-line, at which there occurred what one might call a precipice in Time.
1962J. Fleming When I grow Rich iii. 43 After the arrival of the jet, the *transit lounge had filled up with people. 1983Jetaway (Air New Zealand) Sept.–Oct. 28/2 Transit lounge for 500 passengers who are transferring flights or have no need to go through customs.
1873*Transit man [see packer1 3 c]. 1971Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 8 May 12/1 Harry, a young transit man, had his bed roll next to the Bella Coola trapper.
1889Pall Mall Gaz. 2 Sept. 7/3 Less..than it cost foreigners to bring it to Pakhio under *transit-pass.
1955E. Bowen World of Love xi. 223 They let the *transit passengers off first. 1972J. Potter Going West 17 Transit passengers were encouraged to alight for the stopover.
1861J. Nichol in Mem. (1896) 37 As regular as the *transit-room clock.
1862Catal. Internat. Exhib. II. xiii. 3 A first-rate 6-inch *transit theodolite,..with vertical and horizontal circles.
1948Martin & Hynes Clin. Endocrinol. iv. 70 The intestinal *transit-time is decreased with the production of loose stools or frank diarrhœa. 1962Simpson & Richards Physical Princ. Junction Transistors vii. 117 When operation at higher frequencies is considered these complexities increase many-fold due chiefly to transit-time effects in the flow of minority carriers. 1974Brit. Med. Jrnl. 19 Jan. 108/2 Constipation is best thought of not in terms of transit-time through the gut..but rather the type of faeces produced. 1975D. G. Fink Electronics Engineers' Handbk. vii. 27 Transit time is a large factor in considering the upper frequency limitation of electron tubes.
1803Edin. Rev. III. 243 Those..nations whose wealth has been promoted by the *transit trade. 1852Conybeare & H. St. Paul (1862) II. xxiii. 329 The Valley of the Nile was the channel of an active transit trade in spices, dyes, jewels, and perfumes.
1903Expositor May 335 Jerusalem had no natural command of the *transit-traffic.
1925C. Connolly Let. May in Romantic Friendship (1975) 81, I..had got as far as sending my passport up for some *transit visas. 1979W. H. Canaway Solid Gold Buddha xx. 134 Miller went to the Burmese Embassy..and got his transit visa.
1904Q. Rev. Oct. 341 The trade-winds..contribute greatly to the salubrity and comfort of this *transit-way. ▪ II. transit, v.|ˈtrɑːnsɪt, ˈtræns-, -nz-| [f. L. transit-, ppl. stem of transīre: see prec. Cf. L. transitāre, freq. of transīre (instanced in pr. pple. transitāns Cic.). In earlier use stressed transˈite.] 1. intr. To pass through or over; to pass away.
c1440Gesta Rom. xc. 415 The porter is the worlde; and right as by the porter so by the worlde we may transite. 1595Chapman Ovid's Banq. Sence (1639) 11 As Intellects themselves transite to each intelligible qualitie. 1775‘Joel Collier’ (Alex. Bicknell) Mus. Trav. (ed. 2) 68, I then transided to the gentleman himself. 1797–1803Foster in Life & Corr. (1846) I. 173 The comets of the mind; they transit off. 1803Ibid. 196, I have transited into another person. 1852N. L. Walker Life in Spirit xiii. (1853) 212 One or two transit off from our Divinity Halls annually. 2. trans. To pass across or through (something); to traverse, cross. Also fig.
1674S. Jeake Arith. (1696) 249, I have..transited Decimals and Astronomicals, and shall now apply myself to overlook Logarithmes. 1890Pall Mall Gaz. 10 Mar. 3/1 Another line which would transit Germany, Russia,..Afghanistan, and India. 3. Astrol. To pass across (a sign, ‘house’, or special point, of the zodiac). Also absol. or intr.
1647Lilly Chr. Astrol. lxvii. 409 When the unfortunate Anareta transits the degree ascending. 1686Goad Celest. Bodies iii. ii. 403 Feavers..do annoy us, when the Heavenly Bodies Transit, or take up Station in such Parts of the Zodiack. 1819J. Wilson Dict. Astrol. s.v. Transits, If the lord of the 8th..transit the cusp of the horoscope, it threatens death. 4. Astron. To pass across (the disk of a celestial body, the meridian of a place, or the field of view of a telescope). Also absol. or intr. In quot. 1686 of the moon, to occult (a star or planet).
1686Goad Celest. Bodies i. xii. 49 The {moonfq} transiting {female} that Night raised the Tides. 1755B. Martin Mag. Arts & Sc. I. 45 In the Years 1753, 1786, 1799, in the Month of April, he [Mercury] will transit the Sun's Disk. 1833Herschel Astron. viii. 256 Rendering the planet invisible, unless..where it transits the sun's disc and appears on it as a black spot. 1870Proctor Other Worlds viii. (ed. 2) 184 The markings seen on the third satellite, when transiting Jupiter's disc. 1878Lockyer Stargazing 354 The value of the divisions of the micrometer screw having been previously determined by allowing an equatorial star to transit. |