Transit

How to spell transit

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce transit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does transit mean?

1. nounThe act of passing through or across, or the carrying of people and goods from one place to another.
2. verbTo pass across or through a place or region.

Transit in a sentence

• noun

  The parcel was damaged in transit between the warehouse and the shop.

• verb

  The satellite will transit the sky shortly after sunset.

• noun

  The city is investing heavily in public transit to reduce traffic.

• verb

  Trucks must transit several checkpoints before reaching the border.

Where does transit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Transit comes from the Latin transitus, meaning 'a passing over or across', which was the past participle of the verb transire, 'to go across'. That verb was built from the prefix trans-, meaning 'across' or 'beyond', joined to ire, the plain Latin verb 'to go'. English adopted the word in the late 1400s, at first to describe the act of passing through or over something, and the meaning soon spread to the movement of goods and people from one place to another. The same ire root still travels quietly inside relatives such as 'exit' (literally 'he goes out') and 'transient', while the trans- prefix links transit to a whole family including 'transfer' and 'transport'. The spelling stays close to its Latin source, with a single s and a single t, which is worth remembering since the word is often pronounced with a softer z sound.

How the word is built

• trans- (across)
• -it (from Latin ire, to go)