Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TRAV'ERSE, v.t.

1. To cross; to lay in a cross direction. The parts should be often traversed or crossed by the flowing of the folds. Dryden.
2. To cross by way of opposition; to thwart; to obstruct. Frog thought to traverse this new project. Arbuthnot.
3. To wander over; to cross in traveling; as, to traverse the habitable globe. What seas you travers'd, 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 detestablc vice, ingratitude. South.
5. To turn and point in any direction; as, to traverse a cannon. Cyc.
6. To plane in a direction across the grain of the wood; as, to traverse a board. Cyc.
7. In law pleadings, to deny what the opposite party has alledged. When the plaintif or defendant advances new matter, he avers it to be true, and traverses what the other party has affirmed. So to traverse an indictment or an office, is to deny it. To traverse a yard, in sailing, is to brace it aft.