commute

See also: commuté

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kəˈmjuːt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːt

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin commūtō.

Verb

commute (third-person singular simple present commutes, present participle commuting, simple past and past participle commuted)

1. 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 commute tithes into rentcharges for a sum

   to commute market rents for a premium

   to commute daily fares for a season ticket

   1. (transitive, finance, law) To pay, or arrange to pay, in advance, in a lump sum instead of part by part.

      to commute the daily toll for a year's pass

   2. (transitive, law, criminology) To reduce the sentence previously given for a criminal offense.
      • 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:

      His prison sentence was commuted to probation.

   3. (transitive, insurance, pensions) To pay out the lumpsum present value of an annuity, instead of paying in instalments; to cash in; to encash
   4. (intransitive, obsolete) To obtain or bargain for exemption or substitution;
      • 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:

        He […] thinks it unlawful to commute, and that he is bound to pay his vow in kind.

2. (intransitive, mathematics) Of an operation, to be commutative, i.e. to have the property that changing the order of the operands does not change the result.

   A pair of matrices share the same set of eigenvectors if and only if they commute.

Derived terms

• anticommute
• commutability
• commutable
• commutant
• commutation
• commutative
• commutive
• uncommuted

 

Translations

finance: to pay out the lump-sum present value

• Finnish: maksaa kerralla, suorittaa kertamaksu
• German: ablösen (de), umwandeln (de)

to pay in gross instead of part by part

• Finnish: maksaa kerralla
• German: ablösen (de)

legal: to reduce a sentence

• Catalan: commutar (ca)
• Finnish: lieventää (fi)
• German: herabsetzen (de), umwandeln (de), abwandeln (de)
• Russian: смягчать наказание (smjaxčatʹ nakazanije)
• Spanish: conmutar (es)

to obtain or bargain for exemption or substitution

• Finnish: tinkiä (fi)
• German: tauschen (de)

to put or substitute something else in place of

• Bulgarian: заменям (zamenjam), разменям (bg) (razmenjam)
• Catalan: commutar (ca) (unusual)
• Finnish: vaihtaa (fi), muuntaa (fi)
• German: austauschen (de), umtauschen (de), vertauschen (de), umwandeln (de), abwandeln (de)
• Spanish: conmutar (es) (unusual)

math: to be commutative

• Catalan: commutar (ca)
• Danish: kommutere
• Finnish: kommutoida
• French: commuter (fr)
• German: ersetzen (de); tauschen (de), austauschen (de), vertauschen (de); umstellen (de); kommutieren (de)
• Hungarian: kommutál
• Italian: commutare (it)
• Portuguese: comutar (pt)
• Russian: коммутировать (ru) (kommutirovatʹ)
• Spanish: conmutar (es)
• Swedish: kommutera (sv)

Etymology 2

From commutation ticket, a pass on a railroad, streetcar line, etc. that permitted multiple rides over a period of time, eg, a month, for a single, commuted payment.

Noun

commute (plural commutes)

2. A regular journey between two places, typically home and work.
3. The route, time or distance of that journey.

Translations

route

• Finnish: työmatka (fi)
• German: Arbeitsweg (de) m, Pendlerstrecke f
• Spanish: pendularismo m, viaje al trabajo m
• Swedish: pendling (sv)

distance

• Finnish: työmatka (fi)
• German: Pendlerstrecke f

Verb

commute (third-person singular simple present commutes, present participle commuting, simple past and past participle commuted)

1. (intransitive, US, UK, Canada) To regularly travel from one's home to one's workplace or school, or vice versa.

   I commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan by bicycle.

2. (intransitive, Philippines) To regularly travel from one place to another using public transport.
3. (intransitive) To journey, to make a journey
   • 2015, Elizabeth Royte, Vultures Are Revolting. Here’s Why We Need to Save Them., National Geographic (December 2015)[1]:

     By one estimate, vultures either residing in or commuting into the Serengeti ecosystem during the annual migration—when 1.3 million white-bearded wildebeests shuffle between Kenya and Tanzania—historically consumed more meat than all mammalian carnivores in the Serengeti combined.

Translations

to regularly travel to and from work, school etc.

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 通勤 (zh) (tōngqín)

• Danish: pendle (da)
• Dutch: pendelen (nl)
• Finnish: käydä töissä
• French: faire la navette (fr)
• German: pendeln (de), hin- und herfahren
• Hungarian: ingázik (hu), pendlizik (hu)
• Italian: fare il pendolare
• Japanese: 通う (ja) (かよう, kayou), 通勤する (ja) (つうきんする, tsūkin-suru)
• Korean: 통하다 (ko) (tonghada), 통근하다 (tonggeunhada)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: pendle

  Nynorsk: pendle

• Polish: dojeżdżać do pracy (pl)
• Portuguese: fazer a jornada (de trabalho)
• Romanian: face naveta
• Russian: (регулярно) е́здить (ru) (jézditʹ) (на работу, на учёбу, etc.)
• Spanish: pendular (es), (to work) viajar al trabajo, (from work) viajar del trabajo
• Swedish: pendla (sv)

Derived terms

• commuter
• counter-commute
• postcommute
• reverse-commute
• reverse commute
• telecommute

 

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “commute”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

French

Pronunciation

• Homophones: commutent, commutes

Verb

commute

1. inflection of commuter:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative