Edit page | Page history | Printable version

Transition

1. Passage from one place or state to another; charge; as, the transition of the weather from hot to cold. There is no death, what seems so is transition. (Longfellow)

2. A direct or indirect passing from one key to another; a modulation.

3. A passing from one subject to another. [He] with transition sweet, new speech resumes. (milton)

4. (Science: biology) change from one form to another.

This word is sometimes pronounced; but according to walker, smart, and most other authorities, the customary and preferable pronunciation is, although this latter mode violates analogy. Other authorities say .

(Science: geology) transition rocks, a term formerly applied to the lowest uncrystalline stratified rocks (graywacke) supposed to contain no fossils, and so called because thought to have been formed when the earth was passing from an uninhabitable to a habitable state.

5. In molecular biology, transition is the process in which one purine is substituted by another purine (eg, A->G), or one pyramidine to another pyramidine (eg, T->C).

Origin: L. Transitio: cf. F. Transition. See transient.