transition

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Passage from one form, state, style, or place to another.
2. n. Passage from one subject to another in discourse.
3. n. A word, phrase, sentence, or series of sentences connecting one part of a discourse to another.
4. n. Music A modulation, especially a brief one.
5. n. Music A passage connecting two themes or sections.
6. n. Genetics A point mutation in which a pyrimidine is replaced by another pyrimidine, or a purine is replaced by another purine.
7. n. Sports The process of changing from defense to offense or offense to defense, as in basketball or hockey.
8. n. A period during childbirth that precedes the expulsive phase of labor, characterized by strong uterine contractions and nearly complete cervical dilation.
9. v. To make a transition.
10. v. Sports To change from defense to offense or offense to defense.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Passage from one place, state, or act to another; change: as, a sudden transition from anger to mirth; a state of transition.
2. n. In rhetoric, a passing from one subject to another.
3. n. In music, same (usually) as modulation. Sometimes, however, the term is used more precisely either for a sudden, abrupt shift from one tonality to another unrelated to it, or for a modulation without change of mode. The latter is the technical usage of the tonic sol-faists.
4. n. In geology, the English form of name (used attributively or as an adjective) given by Werner to certain strata which he investigated in northern Germany, and found to have, to a certain extent, the mineral character of the socalled primitive rocks, while also exhibiting indications of a mechanical origin, and even containing occasional fossils, thus indicating a transition or passage from primary to secondary. The name was afterward extended so as to embrace rocks of similar character in other regions. The argillaceous sandstone called by the Germans grauwacke (see graywacke) formed a part of the transition formation, and it was the rocks previously called grauwacke and transition limestone which Murchison studied in England and Wales, and to which, having worked out their order of succession, he gave the name of Silurian, See Silurian.
5. n. In art hist., an epoch or stage of change from one style or state of development in art to the next succeeding; especially, in Greek art, the stage of change from the archaic to the bloom of art, and in medieval art, that from the round-arched or Romanesque to the Pointed style.

Wiktionary

1. n. The process of change from one form, state, style or place to another.
2. n. A word or phrase connecting one part of a discourse to another.
3. n. music A brief modulation; a passage connecting two themes.
4. n. genetics A point mutation in which one base is replaced by another of the same class (purine or pyrimidine); compare transversion.
5. n. A change from defense to attack, or attack to defense.
6. n. medicine The onset of the final stage of childbirth.
7. n. education Professional special education assistance for children or adults in the process of leaving one educational environment or support program for another to relatively more independent living.
8. n. skating A change between forward and backward motion without stopping.
9. n. LGBT The process or act of changing from one gender role to another, or of bringing one's outward appearance in line with one's internal gender identity.
10. v. intransitive To make a transition.
11. v. LGBT To change from one gender role to another, or bring one's outward appearance in line with one's internal gender identity.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Passage from one place or state to another; charge.
2. n. (Mus.) A direct or indirect passing from one key to another; a modulation.
3. n. (Rhet.) A passing from one subject to another.
4. n. (Biol.) Change from one form to another.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a passage that connects a topic to one that follows
2. n. the act of passing from one state or place to the next
3. v. cause to convert or undergo a transition
4. v. make or undergo a transition (from one state or system to another)
5. n. an event that results in a transformation
6. n. a change from one place or state or subject or stage to another
7. n. a musical passage moving from one key to another