What is "traverse"

Traverse \Trav"erse\, a. [OF. travers, L. transversus, p. p. of transvertere to turn or direct across. See Transverse, and cf. Travers.] Lying across; being in a direction across something else; as, paths cut with traverse trenches.

Oak . . . being strong in all positions, may be better trusted in cross and traverse work.
--Sir H. Wotton.

The ridges of the fallow field traverse.
--Hayward.

Traverse drill (Mach.), a machine tool for drilling slots, in which the work or tool has a lateral motion back and forth; also, a drilling machine in which the spindle holder can be adjusted laterally.

Traverse \Trav"erse\, adv. Athwart; across; crosswise.

Traverse \Trav"erse\, n. [F. traverse. See Traverse, a.]

1. Anything that traverses, or crosses. Specifically:

   1. Something that thwarts, crosses, or obstructs; a cross accident; as, he would have succeeded, had it not been for unlucky traverses not under his control.

   2. A barrier, sliding door, movable screen, curtain, or the like.

      Men drinken and the travers draw anon.
      --Chaucer.

      And the entrance of the king, The first traverse was drawn.
      --F. Beaumont.

   3. (Arch.) A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building.
      --Gwilt.

   4. (Fort.) A work thrown up to intercept an enfilade, or reverse fire, along exposed passage, or line of work.

   5. (Law) 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; that is, without this which follows.

   6. (Naut.) The zigzag course or courses made by a ship in passing from one place to another; a compound course.

   7. (Geom.) A line lying across a figure or other lines; a transversal.

   8. (Surv.) A line surveyed across a plot of ground.

   9. (Gun.) The turning of a gun so as to make it point in any desired direction.

2. A turning; a trick; a subterfuge. [Obs.] To work a traverse or To solve a traverse (Naut.), to reduce a series of courses or distances to an equivalent single one; to calculate the resultant of a traverse. Traverse board (Naut.), a small board hung in the steerage, having the points of the compass marked on it, and for each point as many holes as there are half hours in a watch. It is used for recording the courses made by the ship in each half hour, by putting a peg in the corresponding hole. Traverse jury (Law), a jury that tries cases; a petit jury. Traverse sailing (Naut.), a sailing by compound courses; the method or process of finding the resulting course and distance from a series of different shorter courses and distances actually passed over by a ship. Traverse table.

   1. (Naut. & Surv.) A table by means of which the difference of latitude and departure corresponding to any given course and distance may be found by inspection. It contains the lengths of the two sides of a right-angled triangle, usually for every quarter of a degree of angle, and for lengths of the hypothenuse, from 1 to 100.

   2. (Railroad) A platform with one or more tracks, and arranged to move laterally on wheels, for shifting cars, etc., from one line of track to another.

Traverse \Trav"erse\, v. i.

1. To use the posture or motions of opposition or counteraction, as in fencing.

   To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse.
   --Shak.

2. To turn, as on a pivot; to move round; to swivel; as, the needle of a compass traverses; if it does not traverse well, it is an unsafe guide.

3. To tread or move crosswise, as a horse that throws his croup to one side and his head to the other.

Traverse \Trav"erse\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Traversed; p. pr. & vb. n. Traversing.] [Cf. F. traverser. See Traverse, a.]

1. To lay in a cross direction; to cross.

   The parts should be often traversed, or crossed, by the flowing of the folds.
   --Dryden.

2. To cross by way of opposition; to thwart with obstacles; to obstruct; to bring to naught.

   I can not but . . . admit the force of this reasoning, which I yet hope to traverse.
   --Sir W. Scott.

3. To wander over; to cross in traveling; as, to traverse the habitable globe.

   What seas you traversed, and what fields you fought.
   --Pope.

4. To pass over and view; to survey carefully.

   My purpose is to traverse the nature, principles, and properties of this detestable vice -- ingratitude.
   --South.

5. (Gun.) To turn to the one side or the other, in order to point in any direction; as, to traverse a cannon.

6. (Carp.) To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood; as, to traverse a board.

7. (Law) To deny formally, as what the opposite party has alleged. When the plaintiff or defendant advances new matter, he avers it to be true, and traverses what the other party has affirmed. To traverse an indictment or an office is to deny it.

   And save the expense of long litigious laws, Where suits are traversed, and so little won That he who conquers is but last undone.
   --Dryden.

   To traverse a yard (Naut.), to brace it fore and aft.

early 14c., "pass across, over, or through," from Old French traverser "to cross, place across" (11c.), from Vulgar Latin *traversare, from Latin transversare "to cross, throw across," from Latin transversus "turn across" (see transverse). As an adjective from early 15c. Related: Traversed; traversing.

"act of passing through a gate, crossing a bridge, etc.," mid-14c., from Old French travers, from traverser (see traverse (v.)). Meaning "a passage by which one may traverse" is recorded from 1670s. Military fortification sense of "barrier, barricade" is recorded from 1590s.

1. Lying across; being in a direction across something else. adv. athwart; across; crosswise n. 1 (context climbing English) A route used in mountaineering, specifically rock climbing, in which the descent occurs by a different route than the ascent. 2 (context military English) In fortification, a mass of earth or other material employed to protect troops against enfilade. It is constructed at right angles to the parapet. 3 (context surveying English) 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. 4 (context obsolete English) A screen or partition. 5 Something that thwarts or obstructs. 6 A trick; a subterfuge. 7 (context architecture English) A gallery or loft of communication from side to side of a church or other large building. 8 (context legal English) 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). 9 (context nautical English) The zigzag course or courses made by a ship in passing from one place to another; a compound course. 10 (context geometry English) A line lying across a figure or other lines; a transversal. 11 (context firearms English) The turning of a gun so as to make it point in any desired direction. v

2. 1 (context transitive English) To travel across, often under difficult conditions. 2 (context transitive computing English) To visit all parts of; to explore thoroughly. 3 (context artillery English) To rotate a gun around a vertical axis to bear upon a military target. 4 (context climbing English) To climb or descend a steep hill at a wide angle. 5 To lay in a cross direction; to cross. 6 To cross by way of opposition; to thwart with obstacles; to obstruct. 7 To pass over and view; to survey carefully. 8 (context carpentry English) To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood. 9 (context legal English) To deny formally.

1. v. travel across or pass over; "The caravan covered almost 100 miles each day" [syn: track, cover, cross, pass over, get over, get across, cut through, cut across]

2. to cover or extend over an area or time period; "Rivers traverse the valley floor", "The parking lot spans 3 acres"; "The novel spans three centuries" [syn: cross, span, sweep]

3. deny formally (an allegation of fact by the opposing party) in a legal suit [syn: deny]

1. n. a horizontal beam that extends across something [syn: trave, crossbeam, crosspiece]

2. a horizontal crosspiece across a window or separating a door from a window over it [syn: transom]

3. taking a zigzag path on skis [syn: traversal]

4. travel across [syn: traversal]

A traverse is a lateral move or route when climbing or descending (including skiing); meaning any movement operation going mainly sideways rather than up or down. The general sense of 'a Traverse' is to cross, or cut across; and in general mountaineering, a road or path traveled across the gradient traverses the steeper gradient of the face. In civil engineering, road bed cuttings (or 'traverses') dug by construction operations creating an navigable incline into a hillside traverse the slope, also cut across the gradient as does the skier, climber, or builder. In the engineered grade, the traverse can be level (a shelf suitable for building a new house is common) or on an negotiable incline (Railroad cut gradually climbing up a mount).

Hence, Traverse may refer to:

• Traverse (climbing), skiing, and in the above engineering of roads into slopes.
• Traverse (surveying), a method of establishing basic points in the field. This traversal of terrain is to establish a closed polygon, around obstructions, each side of which then becomes a usable baseline.
• Movement of a machine slide on a machine tool, especially moving across relative to the Y-axis
• Traverse stage, a style of theatre seating or performance where the audience is on either side of the performance, and the audience are facing one another

Other meanings:

• TRAVERSE (software), accounting and business software
• Traverse (gunnery), the horizontal field of fire of an artillery piece
• Traverse (trench warfare), a development in trench design, which cuts across main trenchlines.
• Chevrolet Traverse, a 2009 sport-utility vehicle
• Traverse County, Minnesota, a county in Minnesota
• Traverse City, Michigan
• Traverse Theatre, writing theatre in Scotland
• Traverse Town, a fictional city in some Kingdom Hearts series video games

Traverse is a method in the field of surveying to establish control networks. It is also used in geodesy. Traverse networks involve placing survey stations along a line or path of travel, and then using the previously surveyed points as a base for observing the next point. Traverse networks have many advantages, including:

• Less reconnaissance and organization needed;
• While in other systems, which may require the survey to be performed along a rigid polygon shape, the traverse can change to any shape and thus can accommodate a great deal of different terrains;
• Only a few observations need to be taken at each station, whereas in other survey networks a great deal of angular and linear observations need to be made and considered;
• Traverse networks are free of the strength of figure considerations that happen in triangular systems;
• Scale error does not add up as the traverse is performed. Azimuth swing errors can also be reduced by increasing the distance between stations.

The traverse is more accurate than triangulateration (a combined function of the triangulation and trilateration practice).

Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine is a monthly magazine about life in Northern Michigan including Petoskey, Mackinac Island, Harbor Springs, Frankfort, Traverse City, Leelanau County, the Upper Peninsula, and more. Founded in June, 1981, The magazine has 23,000 subscribers throughout the country and sells 8,000 copies on newsstands throughout the Midwest. Launched in 2008, MyNorth.com is the online home of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine and a portal to the Northern Michigan lifestyle. At MyNorth.com readers can access news plus a complete database of Northern Michigan attractions, travel ideas like Sleeping Bear Dunes and Mackinac, outdoors recreation, restaurant hot spots, wineries, breweries, northern style and events across Northern Michigan. The pages of Traverse Magazine are filled with four-color photography and articles on food, wine, restaurants, outdoors recreation, events, essays, history and Northern Michigan lifestyle. Other magazines produced by the staff of Traverse Magazine include Northern Home & Cottage, MyNorth Vacation Guide, MyNorth Wedding, Meetings North, Senior Living, Holidays Up North and more. Books published include The Cottage Cookbook, and Reflections of a Life Up North.

TRAVERSE Accounting and Business Software (Enterprise Resource Planning - ERP) is a business accounting software suite for small- to medium-sized businesses using the Microsoft Windows operating system. First produced in 1994 by Open Systems, Inc., TRAVERSE is a group of interrelated applications which operate in tandem. TRAVERSE runs using the Microsoft SQL Server database. In versions released from 1994 to 2009, TRAVERSE was coded with Visual Basic for Applications, and operated as a Microsoft Access application. The current version is coded using the C# programming language within the Microsoft .NET framework, and no longer requires Microsoft Access.

A traverse in trench warfare is an adaptation to reduce casualties to defenders occupying a trench. One form of traverse is a U-shaped detour in the trench with the trench going around a protrusion formed of earth and sandbags. The fragments or shrapnel, or shockwave from a shell landing and exploding within a trench then cannot spread past the obstacle the traverse interposes. Also, an enemy that has entered a trench is unable to fire down the length at the defenders, or otherwise enfilade the trench.

A traverse trench is a trench dug perpendicular to a trench line, but extending away from the enemy. It has two functions. One function is to provide an entry into the main trench. A second function is to provide a place for defenders to shelter and regroup should the enemy have penetrated into the main trench and be able to fire down the main trench's length.

On an approach trench, that is, a trench leading from the rear to the frontline or firing trench, defenders may construct an island traverse. With an island traverse, the approach trench splits to go around both sides of a traverse before coming together again.

Lastly, a flying or bridge traverse is a sandbagged covering for a stretch of trench to block shrapnel or shell fragments from entering the trench.