# transition
## English
### Etymology

From Middle French transition, from Latin transitio. By surface analysis, transit +‎ -ion.

### Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /tɹænˈzɪ.ʃən/, /tɹɑːnˈzɪ.ʃən/, /-sɪ-/, /-ʒən/
* (US) IPA: /tɹænˈzɪ.ʃən/, /-sɪ-/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪʃən
* Hyphenation: tran‧si‧tion

### Noun

transition (countable and uncountable, plural transitions)
* The process of change from one form, state, style or place to another.
** 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. […] Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion—or rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.
** 1960 June, “Diesel locomotive operation on the Great Eastern Line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 374:In a period of transition from steam to diesel, many of the schemes are inevitably of an interim nature and only on full dieselisation will the final pattern be determined and full benefit derived.
** 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎:So, depending on how he chooses to govern over the next four years, Mr. Obama may yet have a chance to reset the stale debate in Washington, or at least to hasten the transition from one moment to the next. His re-election opens the door further for the post-’60s generation, even if it does not quite clear the room.
* A word or phrase connecting one part of a discourse to another.
    Holonym: metadiscourse
* (music) A brief modulation; a passage connecting two themes.
* (music) A change of key.
* (genetics) A point mutation in which one base is replaced by another of the same class (purine or pyrimidine); compare transversion.
* (some sports) A change from defense to attack, or attack to defense.
* (medicine) The onset of the final stage of childbirth.
* (education) Professional special education assistance for children or adults in the process of leaving one educational environment or support program for another to relatively more independent living.
* (skating) A change between forward and backward motion without stopping.
* (LGBTQ) The process or act of changing one's gender role or physical and sexual characteristics, by social, medical, or legal methods, to conform to their identified gender, rather than the sex assigned at birth.
    Synonym: gender transition
** 2014 January 7, Katie McDonough, quoting Laverne Cox, “Laverne Cox flawlessly shuts down Katie Couric's invasive questions about transgender people”, in Salon‎, archived from the original on 2014-03-01:The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people. And then we don't get to really deal with the real lived experiences.
** 2016, Jenni Fagan, The Sunlight Pilgrims, William Heinemann, page 29:The LED lights up her face as she watches the YouTube video of a goth girl in New Orleans again. Nobody could tell to look at her. She has a year-long film of her transition and at the end of it she has black lips and long hair and she is hot.
** 2021 September 2, Shon Faye, The Transgender Issue, →ISBN:When trans young people talk about their own transition, usually they mean using a different name and pronouns from the ones given to them at birth, and adapting their gender presentation to better express themselves, while asking that others (particularly family members, peers and teachers) acknowledge this presentation.
* (aviation) A published procedure for instrument flight, coming between the departure and en-route phases of flight, or between en-route flight and an approach/landing procedure.
* (euphemistic) Death; passing from life into death.
** 2011, Wendy Taylor, Shaman in Disguise, John Hunt Publishing, →ISBN, page 82:As I read for the first time the inscription on my ancestor's tombstone, I recognized her name, but it was the date that transfixed my gaze and made my hair stand on end. The date of her death was March 1st, a fact I had been unaware of, but I did know that this day happened also to be March 1st; it was the thirty-second anniversary of her transition.
** 2012, Iyanla Vanzant, Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through, Smiley Books, →ISBN, page 289:This was my first Christmas without Gemmia and the one-year anniversary of her transition. […] We had a lovely time, but it was very clear that we would rather have been home doing what we would have done had Gemmia been alive.

#### Usage notes

* In the United Kingdom education system, the noun is used to define any move within or between schools, for example, a move from one year group to the next. Contrast transfer, which is used to define a move from one school to another, for example from primary school to secondary school.
* In the United States education system, the noun is used to define a move from a one phase of an Independent Educational Program to another specifically regarding the child's or adult's progress from more or less special educational support to greater independent living.

#### Derived terms

* demographic transition
* filtered-popping recursive transition network
* glass transition
* glass transition temperature
* phase transition
* positive transition
* post-transition metal
* transition economy
* transition function
* transition house
* transition map
* transition matrix
* transition point
* transition state
* transition technology
* transition temperature
* transition time
* transition town
* transition year
* transition zone

#### Translations
### Verb

transition (third-person singular simple present transitions, present participle transitioning, simple past and past participle transitioned)
* (intransitive) To make a transition.
* (transitive) To bring through a transition; to change.
    The soldier was transitioned from a combat role to a strategic role.
* (intransitive, LGBTQ) To change one's gender role or physical and sexual characteristics to conform to one's identified gender.
** 2006, Taylor J. Holder, All Points in Between: Shifting on the Scale of Sex and Gender, →ISBN:Eric told me that after he transitioned, he wanted to learn to fish and all the things his father never taught him.
** 2009, Julia Serano, Whipping Girl, →ISBN:And simply being accepted into one of these programs was not a guarantee that one would be allowed to transition. First, the trans person had to undergo extensive, sometimes indefinite, periods of psychotherapy […]
** 2009, Mara Drummond, Transitions - A Guide To Transitioning For Transsexuals And Their Families, page 71:If the transitioning person leaves the family home, there will be moving costs, and costs associated with the acquisition of another home or the renting of an apartment. If the non-transitioning spouse leaves the family home, […]
** 2012, Kevin Alderson, Counseling LGBTI Clients, →ISBN, page 195:After he transitioned, he changed jobs so he could go stealth, hoping that no one would discover he was once a woman.
** 2021 September 2, Shon Faye, The Transgender Issue, →ISBN:Weimar Berlin. The first known case of a British person medically transitioning from one gender to another with the assistance of hormones and surgeries was Michael Dillon, a trans man (or 'female-to-male transsexual').

#### Derived terms

* detransition
* retransition
* transit
* transitional
* transition altitude
* transitionary
* transition element
* transitionist
* transition layer
* transition level
* transition metal
* transition strip

#### Translations
### References

* “transition”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
* “transition”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
* “transition”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* “transition” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
* “transition”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

### Anagrams

* nitrations

## French
### Etymology

From Latin trānsitiōnem.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /tʁɑ̃.zi.sjɔ̃/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

transition f (plural transitions)
* transition

#### Derived terms

* transition énergétique
* transitionnel

#### Related terms

* transir
* transitif

### Further reading

* “transition”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.