Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A violation of a law, principle, or duty. synonym: breach.
  • noun The exceeding of due bounds or limits.
  • noun A relative rise in sea level resulting in deposition of marine strata over terrestrial strata.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of transgressing; the violation of any law; disobedience; infringement; trespass; offense.
  • noun Synonyms Sin, Trespass, etc. (see crime), infraction, breach.
  • noun In geology, the process which produces overlap. Thus a shore-line, with one series of strata recently formed beneath the neighboring waters, may subside and allow the sea, bringing new sediments, to encroach farther and farther upon the land, away from the old series, and deposit new and overlapping beds by transgression.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of transgressing, or of passing over or beyond any law, civil or moral; the violation of a law or known principle of rectitude; breach of command; fault; offense; crime; sin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A violation of a law, command or duty
  • noun An act that goes beyond generally accepted boundaries
  • noun A relative rise in sea level resulting in deposition of marine strata over terrestrial strata

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the spreading of the sea over land as evidenced by the deposition of marine strata over terrestrial strata
  • noun the action of going beyond or overstepping some boundary or limit
  • noun the act of transgressing; the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin transgressus, from trans- ("over-") + gressus ("step")

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Examples

  • _I answer that, _ The term transgression is derived from bodily movement and applied to moral actions.

    Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas

  • I don't think it's hard to see how a reader's reaction to the strange may add exactly this sort of boulomaic modality, particularly with Horror, where the strange becomes the uncanny, where the transgression is as much moral as nomological, where the events not only "could not have happened" but "should not have happened"

    Archive 2008-01-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • I don't think it's hard to see how a reader's reaction to the strange may add exactly this sort of boulomaic modality, particularly with Horror, where the strange becomes the uncanny, where the transgression is as much moral as nomological, where the events not only "could not have happened" but "should not have happened"

    Narrative Grammars Hal Duncan 2008

  • If the transgression is a result of error rather than impulse or intent, the wrongness is not "in" us.

    The Stain of Sin Hal Duncan 2006

  • Their main transgression involves the use of so-called robo-signers, bank employees who signed foreclosure affidavits without properly checking the required loan documentation.

    The Stealth Stimulus of Defaulters Living for Free Mark Whitehouse 2010

  • Because transgression is vice, because we must control our passions, because vice is self-indulgence, because passion can only be controlled by reason, because reason is control, because control is virtue.

    Stoicism, Sophistry and Sodomy Hal Duncan 2009

  • Because transgression is vice, because we must control our passions, because vice is self-indulgence, because passion can only be controlled by reason, because reason is control, because control is virtue.

    Archive 2009-08-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • Such a transgression is probably good for at least a week in the doghouse.

    2007 February « Hyperpat’s HyperDay 2007

  • Such a transgression is probably good for at least a week in the doghouse.

    A Negative Aspect « Hyperpat’s HyperDay 2007

  • Every past or present Israeli transgression is evidence of its wickedness, whereas Arab ones, if they are acknowledged at all, are “understandable.”

    Think Progress » Gingrich: ‘This Is, In Fact, World War III’ And The U.S. ‘Ought To Be Helping’ 2006

Comments

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  • transgresSIoN

    April 26, 2008