commute
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kəˈmjuːt/
ipa: /kəˈmjut/
ipa: /kəˈmjʉːt/
rhymes: -uːt
Forms: form: commutes
form: commuting
form: commuted
form: commuted
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin commūtō.
Senses: examples: text: to commute tithes into rentcharges for a sum
text: to commute market rents for a premium
text: to commute daily fares for a season ticket
glosses: To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen
examples: text: to commute the daily toll for a year's pass
topics: business
finance
law
glosses: To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen
To pay, or arrange to pay, in advance, in a lump sum instead of part by part.
examples: text: His prison sentence was commuted to probation.
ref: 1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “THE UTMOST THAT COULD BE OBTAINED WAS THAT HER SENTENCE SHOULD BE COMMUTED FROM BURNING TO BEHEADING.”, in Lady Trevelyan (Hannah More Macaulay), editor, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume V, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, →OCLC:
text: Ruslan Kutaev is evidence of this: not only was the elderly man sentenced to four years in prison (later commuted to two months), but he was tortured and his family threatened. This seems to be the price of viewing the world in other than Kadyrovite terms.
ref: 2018, Dominic Rubin, Russia's Muslim Heartlands: Islam in the Putin Era, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 207:
topics: criminology
human-sciences
law
sciences
glosses: To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen
To reduce the sentence previously given for a criminal offense.
topics: business
insurance
glosses: To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen
To pay out the lumpsum present value of an annuity, instead of paying in instalments; to cash in; to encash
qualifier: pensions
examples: text: He […] thinks it unlawful to commute, and that he is bound to pay his vow in kind.
ref: 1660, Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in All Her General Measures; […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] James Flesher, for Richard Royston […], →OCLC:
glosses: To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen
To obtain or bargain for exemption or substitution;
examples: text: A pair of matrices share the same set of eigenvectors if and only if they commute.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: Of an operation, to be commutative, i.e. to have the property that changing the order of the operands does not change the result.
Derived terms: anticommute
commutability
commutable
commutant
commutation
commutative
commutive
uncommuted