transposition

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or an instance of transposing.
2. n. The state of being transposed.
3. n. Something transposed.
4. n. Genetics Transfer of a segment of DNA to a new position on the same or another chromosome or plasmid.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In geometry, any motion other than revolution.
2. n. In electricity, arrangement of the wires of a power-transmission, telegraph-, or telephone-line so that after a certain distance the wires change places with each other, for the purpose of reducing the disturbing effect of the line on other lines or of other lines on the former, which may occur by induction, electromagnetic or electrostatic.
3. n. The act of transposing; a putting of each of two things in the place before occupied by the other; less frequently, a change in the order of more than two things; also, the state of being transposed, or reciprocally changed in place.
4. n. In algebra, the bringing over of any term or terms of an equation from one side to the other side. This is done by changing the sign of every term so transposed, the operation being in effect the adding of the term with its sign reversed to both sides of the equation. If a + x =b + c, then by transposition we get x =b + c—a, or x—b =c—a, or x + a—c =b, etc.
5. n. In rhetoric and grammar, a change of the usual order of words in a sentence; words changed from their ordinary arrangement for the sake of effect.
6. n. In music, the act, process, or result of altering the tonality of a piece or passage from a given tonality, either in performance or in transcription. Transposition in itself involves only a change of key-note and a uniform shift of pitch upward or downward; but such a change may also involve more or less serious collateral changes. In purely vocal music slight transpositions are practically immaterial, and considerable ones are only noticeable because they change the ease or the method in which given tones are produced. Transposition in instrumental music, however, usually involves somewhat radical changes in the mechanism of performance, as in fingering, stopping, etc.; and these changes often involve also extensive changes in the ordinary staff-notation. Musically such mechanical or graphic changes are merely nominal and fictitious, though they often appear to have considerable importance.

Wiktionary

1. n. A shift of a piece of music to a different musical key by adjusting all the notes of the work equally either up or down in pitch.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of transposing, or the state of being transposed.
2. n. The bringing of any term of an equation from one side over to the other without destroying the equation.
3. n. A change of the natural order of words in a sentence; as, the Latin and Greek languages admit transposition, without inconvenience, to a much greater extent than the English.
4. n. A change of a composition into another key.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (genetics) a kind of mutation in which a chromosomal segment is transfered to a new position on the same or another chromosome
2. n. (mathematics) the transfer of a quantity from one side of an equation to the other along with a change of sign
3. n. (music) playing in a different key from the key intended; moving the pitch of a piece of music upwards or downwards
4. n. an event in which one thing is substituted for another
5. n. (electricity) a rearrangement of the relative positions of power lines in order to minimize the effects of mutual capacitance and inductance
6. n. any abnormal position of the organs of the body
7. n. the act of reversing the order or place of