transit: Meaning and Definition of

tran•sit

1. the act or fact of passing across or through; passage from one place to another.
2. conveyance or transportation from one place to another, as of persons or goods, esp., local public transportation:Cf. city transit.
3. a transition or change.
1. the passage of a heavenly body across the meridian of a given location or through the field of a telescope.
2. the passage of Mercury or Venus across the disk of the sun, or of a satellite or its shadow across the face of its primary.
3. Seemeridian circle.
5. the passage of a planet in aspect to another planet or a specific point in a horoscope.
1. Also calledtransit instrument.an instrument, as a theodolite, having a telescope that can be transited, used for measuring horizontal and sometimes vertical angles.
2. a repeating transit theodolite.
7. (cap.) one of a series of satellites for providing positional data to ships and aircraft.

1. to pass across or through.
2. to turn (the telescope of a transit) in a vertical plane in order to reverse direction; plunge.
3. to cross (a meridian, celestial body, etc.).

1. to pass over or through something; make a transit.
2. to make a transit across a meridian, celestial body, etc.