Transcend

How to spell transcend

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce transcend

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does transcend mean?

1. verbTo go beyond the usual limits of something, or to be greater than ordinary experience or boundaries.

Transcend in a sentence

• Great art can transcend language and cultural barriers.

• The team worked hard to transcend their previous sales record.

Where does transcend come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin transcendere, which literally meant 'to climb over' or 'to climb beyond'. It was built from the prefix trans-, meaning 'across' or 'beyond', and the verb scandere, meaning 'to climb', the same root that gives us 'ascend', 'descend' and 'scandal' (originally a 'trap' one might stumble over). English took the word in during the late 1300s, at first carrying the literal idea of rising above or overstepping, and it soon settled into the figurative sense of surpassing ordinary limits. The spelling trap lives in that buried -sc-: the c is silent in speech, so the cluster 'scend' is easy to reduce to a plain 's'. Remembering its cousins 'ascend' and 'descend', which share the same scandere root and the same hidden c, is the surest way to keep the spelling intact.

How the word is built

• trans- (across, beyond)
• scend (from Latin scandere: to climb)