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Traverse vs Through - What's the difference?

traverse | through |

As nouns the difference between traverse and through

is that traverse is a route used in mountaineering, specifically rock climbing, in which the descent occurs by a different route than the ascent while through is a large slab of stone laid on a tomb.

As adverbs the difference between traverse and through

is that traverse is athwart; across; crosswise while through is from one side to the other by way of the interior.

As adjectives the difference between traverse and through

is that traverse is lying across; being in a direction across something else while through is passing from one side of an object to the other.

As a verb traverse

is to travel across, often under difficult conditions.

As a preposition through is

from one side of an opening to the other.

traverse

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (climbing) A route used in mountaineering, specifically rock climbing, in which the descent occurs by a different route than the ascent.
  • (military) In fortification, a mass of earth or other material employed to protect troops against enfilade. It is constructed at right angles to the parapet.
  • (surveying) A series of points, with angles and distances measured between, traveled around a subject, usually for use as "control" i.e. angular reference system for later surveying work.
  • (obsolete) A screen or partition.
  • * 1499 , (John Skelton), The Bowge of Court :
  • Than sholde ye see there pressynge in a pace / Of one and other that wolde this lady see, / Whiche sat behynde a traves of sylke fyne, / Of golde of tessew the fynest that myghte be
  • * F. Beaumont
  • At the entrance of the king, / The first traverse was drawn.
  • Something that thwarts or obstructs.
  • He would have succeeded, had it not been for unlucky traverses not under his control.
  • A trick; a subterfuge.
  • (architecture) A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building.
  • (Gwilt)
  • (legal) A formal denial of some matter of fact alleged by the opposite party in any stage of the pleadings. The technical words introducing a traverse are absque hoc ("without this", i.e. without what follows).
  • (nautical) The zigzag course or courses made by a ship in passing from one place to another; a compound course.
  • (geometry) A line lying across a figure or other lines; a transversal.
  • (firearms) The turning of a gun so as to make it point in any desired direction.
  • Verb

  • To travel across, often under difficult conditions.
  • He will have to traverse the mountain to get to the other side.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • what seas you traversed , and what fields you fought
  • (computing) To visit all parts of; to explore thoroughly.
  • to traverse all nodes in a network
  • (artillery) To rotate a gun around a vertical axis to bear upon a military target.
  • to traverse a cannon
  • (climbing) To climb or descend a steep hill at a wide angle.
  • To lay in a cross direction; to cross.
  • * Dryden
  • The parts should be often traversed , or crossed, by the flowing of the folds.
  • To cross by way of opposition; to thwart with obstacles; to obstruct.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • I cannot but admit the force of this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse .
  • To pass over and view; to survey carefully.
  • * South
  • My purpose is to traverse the nature, principles, and properties of this detestable vice — ingratitude.
  • (carpentry) To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood.
  • to traverse a board
  • (legal) To deny formally.
  • * Dryden
  • And save the expense of long litigious laws, / Where suits are traversed , and so little won / That he who conquers is but last undone.

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • athwart; across; crosswise
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Lying across; being in a direction across something else.
  • paths cut with traverse trenches
  • * Sir H. Wotton
  • Oak being strong in all positions, may be better trusted in cross and traverse work.
  • * Hayward
  • the ridges of the fallow field traverse

    Derived terms

    * traverse drill

    Anagrams

    * ----

    through

    English

    Alternative forms

    * thorow (obsolete) * thru

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) *. See also thorough.

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • From one side of an opening to the other.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) , title= Ideas coming down the track , passage=A “moving platform” scheme
  • Entering, then later leaving.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging.He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
  • *
  • *:Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= No hiding place , passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%.}}
  • Surrounded by (while moving).
  • :
  • *, chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Snakes and ladders , passage=Risk is everywhere.
  • By means of.
  • :
  • *{{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 28, author=Tom Rostance, title=Arsenal 2-1 Olympiakos
  • , work=BBC Sport citation , passage=But the home side were ahead in the eighth minute through 18-year-old Oxlade-Chamberlain.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The attack of the MOOCs , passage=Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.}}
  • (lb) To (or up to) and including, with all intermediate values.
  • :
  • Derived terms
    (terms derived using the preposition "through") * clear through * feedthrough * get through * go through * look through * right through * through and through * through with * throughput * throughway

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Passing from one side of an object to the other.
  • :
  • Finished; complete.
  • :
  • Valueless; without a future.
  • :
  • No longer interested.
  • :
  • *
  • *:“I'm through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.
  • *1977 , Iggy Pop,
  • *:I'm worth a million in prizes / Yeah, I'm through with sleeping on the sidewalk / No more beating my brains / No more beating my brains / With the liquor and drugs / With the liquor and drugs
  • Proceeding from origin to destination without delay due to change of equipment.
  • :
  • Adverb

    (-)
  • From one side to the other by way of the interior.
  • The arrow went straight through .
  • From one end to the other.
  • Others slept; he worked straight through .
    She read the letter through .
  • To the end.
  • He said he would see it through .
  • Completely.
  • Leave the yarn in the dye overnight so the color soaks through .
  • Out into the open.
  • The American army broke through at St. Lo.

    References

    * Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans, "Bounded landmarks", in The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition , Cambridge University Press, 2003, 0-521-81430 8

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A large slab of stone laid on a tomb.