3 meanings
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1 —as in:
commute from New Jersey
Definition
regular travel between home and work- She has a long commute to work.
commute = regular travel between home and work
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- The study shows that the time needed for average commute has increased again.
- Audiobooks make the commute interesting.
- I'll only be a twenty-minute train ride from your school, and I'll make the commute to see you every night.Stephanie Perkins -- Anna and the French Kiss
- At the time he wrote these words, he was holding down a full-time job, flipping Quarter Pounders at a McDonald's on the main drag, commuting to work on a bicycle.Jon Krakauer -- Into the Wild
- Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn't know — though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train.F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby
- It was nearly a two-hour commute,Junot Diaz -- Drown
- To have teachers commute to the island or to have a large boat to transport the children to the mainland.Pat Conroy -- The Water is Wide
- The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea.F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby
- My commutation ticket came back to me with a dark stain from his hand.F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby
commute = regular travel between home and work
commute = regular travel between home and work
commute = regular journey
commuting = travelling
commuting = taking people between home and work
commute = regular travel between home and work
commute = make a regular journey of some distance — typically between home and work
commuting = of people who need to travel to work each day
commutation = from the trip
(editor's note: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.)
2 —as in:
commute the sentence
Definition
to exchange a penalty for one that is less severe- The governor commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
commuted = reduced
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- The Justice Department strongly opposed the petition, but the President commuted the 12-year sentence—cutting it in half.
- "He'll go to the chair," said Atticus, "unless the Governor commutes his sentence."Harper Lee -- To Kill a Mockingbird
- She asked for commutation as an act of mercy.
- He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was commuted to twenty years in 1973, of which he served only ten.Stieg Larsson -- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
- Colonel Aureliano Buendia, in spite of the violent recriminations of Ursula, refused to commute the sentence.Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- But the doctor, a Captain Ono, asked the commanding officer if he would commute the sentence and give the man over to him, for purposes of instruction.Chang-rae Lee -- A Gesture Life
- Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe.George Eliot -- Middlemarch
- Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was imprisoned in Florida, but his sentence was commuted by President Johnson, partly for assistance during an outbreak of illness in the prison.James L. Swanson -- Chasing Lincoln's Killer
commuted = reduced
commutes = exchanges a punishment for a less severe punishment
commutation = to exchange a penalty for one that is less severe
(editor's note: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.)
3 —as in:
commutative property of addition
Definition
math: the order in which two numbers are added or multiplied does not change their sum or product (2+3=3+2) and (4x7=7x4)- As in math, the commutative property works for this recipe. The order in which you add the ingredients doesn't matter.
commutative property = math: the order in which two numbers are added or multiplied does not change their sum or product (2+3=3+2) and (4x7=7x4)
- The commutative property for multiplication is a lot like that of addition.
commutative property = math: the order in which two numbers are added or multiplied does not change their sum or product (2+3=3+2) and (4x7=7x4)
Less commonly:
See a comprehensive dictionary for less common senses of commute such as changing one thing for another as in: "It was once believed that the philosopher's stone would commute lead to gold."