Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TRAV'ERSE, n. [supra.]

1. Any thing laid or built across. There is a traverse placed in the loft where she sitteth. Bacon.
2. Something that thwarts, crosses or obstructs; a cross accident. He is satisfied he should have succeeded, had it not been for unlucky traverses not in his power.
3. In fortification, a trench with a little parapet for protecting men on the flank; also, a wall raised across a work. Cyc.
4. In navigation, traverse sailing is the mode of computing the place of a ship by reducing several short courses made by sudden shifts or turns, to one longer course. D. Olmsted.
5. In law, a denial of what the opposite party has advanced in any stage of the pleadings. When the traverse or denial comes from the defendant, the issue is tendered in this manner, “and of this he puts himself on the country.” When the traverse lies on the plaintif, he prays “this may be inquired of by the country.” Blackstone. The technical words introducing a traverse, are absque hoc, without this; that is, without this which follows.
6. A turning; a trick.