Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Designating a verb or verb construction that does not require or cannot take a direct object, as snow or sleep.
- n. An intransitive verb.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In grammar, not expressing an action that passes immediately over to an object; not taking a direct object: said of verbs that require a preposition before their object, or take one only indirectly, or in the manner of a dative: as, to stand on the ground; to swim in the water; to run away. But the distinction of transitive and intransitive is not a very sharp one in English. Every transitive verb is capable of being used also intransitively, or without an expressed object; and, on the other hand, many intransitives may be used transitively (the verb being usually causal), taking a direct object, as in to run a horse, or merely a cognate object, as in to run a race; or are used factitively with a more general object, as in to breathe a prayer, to look love, or with an objective predicate. as in to sing one's self hoarse, to stare one out of countenance, and so on. Owing, also, to the non-distinction of dative and accusative in modern English, a construction often seems transitive which is historically intransitive: as, to
forgive us , where us is historically dative, the direct object being understood, or expressed as in “forgive us our debts.” Abbreviated intransitive - Not transitive, in the logical or mathematical sense.
- n. In grammar, a verb which does not properly take after it an object, as sit, fall, run, lie.
- In grammar: Noting the case which expresses the subject of the intransitive verb or the object of the transitive verb.
- In Eskimo gram., noting the thing possessed. Also called objective.
Wiktionary
- adj. Not transitive: not having, or not taking, a direct object.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not passing farther; kept; detained.
- adj. Not transitive; not passing over to an object; expressing an action or state that is limited to the agent or subject, or, in other words, an action which does not require an object to complete the sense.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a verb (or verb construction) that does not take an object
- adj. designating a verb that does not require or cannot take a direct object
Examples
“His theory, which consisted of four major stages and multiple substages, also set the ground rules for future stage theories: they are hierarchical, in that later stages grow out of earlier ones, and they are intransitive, that is, unable to be reordered.”
“There is an 'intransitive' element in us, a habit of doing things that have significance.”
“Some transitive verbs have English meanings which do not differ in form from the "intransitive" English verbs to which they are related”
“English it is generally intransitive, meaning to be careful or thoughtful; it is from the Anglo-Saxon 'Carian'; it became obsolete in the seventeenth century.”
“An "intransitive" verb, of course, is one that acts on its own, without an object.”
“The verb "lie" (prone or at rest) is intransitive, meaning, as you well know it, cannot have direct objects.”
“I'd say that the only difference between the verb "se souvenir" (intransitive) and the verb "se rappeler" (transitive) is in the construction.”
“I did learn that the F-word can be used as a verb transitive or intransitive, as well as compound, adverb, adjective, command, interjection and noun -- often in a single sentence.”
The Huffington Post: Dr. Peggy Drexler: Mean Girls and Media: The Teenage Fists of Feminism
“Contemplation is "intransitive and experiential in its nature, is for itself"; analytic thought "is transitive, is goal directed ... a means, its increments mainly building blocks toward some synthesis or explanation.”
“Desaparecido is the past participle of desaparecer, which means disappear, but one curiosity of the Spanish language is that past participles of intransitive verbs can have active meanings.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘intransitive’.
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trans-
across or beyond; on or to the other side; through; going beyond
transcendent, transform, transonic, transalpine, transcontinental, transparent, transparency, transportation, transport, transatlantic, transfer, translate and 30 more...
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