transverse

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Situated or lying across; crosswise.
2. n. Something, such as a part or beam, that is transverse.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In mathematics, a transverse axis.
2. Lying or being across or in a cross direction; cross; thwart.
3. Collateral.
4. In anatomy and zoology, broader or wider than long; having its major diameter crosswise: noting various parts or organs which lie or are taken to run across other parts, or especially across the long axis of the whole body. See transversalis and transversus.
5. In botany:
6. Right and left or collateral with reference to the median plane.
7. Being at right angles to the axial direction: for example, see transverse partition, below.
8. In herpetology, specifically noting a bone of the skull which usually unites the palatine and the pterygoid bones with the maxilla. It is usually flattened, plate-like, and firmly sutured, making a solid framework of the maxillary and pterygopalatine bars; but in some ophidians, as the venomous snakes, it is a slender rod movable articulated in front with the maxilla, and connected behind with the pterygoid only; it then takes great part in the peculiar movement of the bones of the upper jaw by which the venomfangs are thrown into position for striking. See also cuts under Ophidia, Pythonidæ, Crotalus, and acrodont.
9. In heraldry, crossing the escutcheon from one side to the opposite one.
10. Of the brain, a fissure beneath the fornix and the hemispheres, above the optic thalami, through which membranes and vessels are continued from the pia mater into the ventricles of the brain.
11. n. In anatomy, a transversalis or transversus: as, the transverse of the abdomen, perineum, or sole of the foot.
12. Crosswise; across; transversely.
13. To overturn; turn topsyturvy.
14. To change; transpose. Compare transprose.
15. To transgress; run counter.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Situated or lying across; side to side, relative to some defined "forward" direction.
2. adj. geometry Not tangent: so that a nondegenerate angle is formed between the two things intersecting.
3. v. obsolete To change from prose into verse, or from verse into prose.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Lying or being across, or in a crosswise direction; athwart; -- often opposed to longitudinal.
2. n. Anything that is transverse or athwart.
3. n. (Geom.) The longer, or transverse, axis of an ellipse.
4. v. rare To overturn; to change.
5. v. obsolete To change from prose into verse, or from verse into prose.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. extending or lying across; in a crosswise direction; at right angles to the long axis