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Transcend vs Penetrate - What's the difference?

transcend | penetrate |

As verbs the difference between transcend and penetrate

is that transcend is to pass beyond the limits of something while penetrate is to enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.

transcend

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • to pass beyond the limits of something.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • such popes as shall transcend their limits
  • to surpass, as in intensity or power; to excel.
  • * Dryden
  • How much her worth transcended all her kind.
  • (obsolete) To climb; to mount.
  • lights in the heavens transcending the region of the clouds
    (Howell)

    Derived terms

    * transcendence * transcendency * transcendent * transcendental * transcendentalism * transcendentalist * transcendentally * transcending

    penetrate

    English

    (Penetration)

    Verb

    (penetrat)
  • To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.
  • Light penetrates darkness.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1879, title=The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph
  • , author=Th Du Moncel, page=166, publisher=Harper , passage=He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.}}
  • (figuratively) To achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.
  • I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.
  • * Ray
  • things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate
  • To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.
  • to penetrate one's heart with pity
  • * M. Arnold
  • The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.
    (Shakespeare)
  • To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
  • To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina or anus. (rfex)
  • Derived terms

    * penetration * penetrable