3 meanings
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1 —as in:
commute from New Jersey
Definition
regular travel — such as between home and work- She has a long commute to work.
commute = regular travel between home and work
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- Audiobooks make the commute from home to school interesting.
- The study shows that the time needed for average commute has increased again.
- The soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors, Coast Guardsmen, cadets, and everyone else in front of me began to shuffle their feet toward the door; it reminded me of commuters leaving a packed subway car, an odd resonance as I approached the open door two thousand feet in the air.Wes Moore -- The Other Wes Moore
- And the commute was quite easy now that the Labyrinth is back in service.Rick Riordan -- The Hidden Oracle
- You can commute to Penn; you know how easy it is.Sara Shepard -- Pretty Little Liars
- 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
- The announcer got a lot of mileage out of the story, going on about the rubes with their clunker of a vehicle and yapping dog who were making thousands of New York commuters late for work.Jeannette Walls -- The Glass Castle
- 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
- Valentine, it costs more money than your father will make in his lifetime for me to fly to Earth and back to the Battle School again. I don't commute casually.Orson Scott Card -- Ender's Game
commute = regular travel between two locations
commute = regular travel between home and work
commuters = people traveling between home and work
commute = regular journey
commute = regularly travel back and forth
commuting = travelling
commuters = people traveling between home and work
commute = regular journey
commute = travel back and forth
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 = exchanged a penalty for one that is less severe
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- She asked for commutation as an act of mercy.
- The Justice Department strongly opposed the petition, but the President commuted the 12-year sentence—cutting it in half.
- Some death sentences were later commuted; 920 men were eventually executed.Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken
- "He'll go to the chair," said Atticus, "unless the Governor commutes his sentence."Harper Lee -- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The problem was so significant in Illinois that in 2003, Governor George Ryan, a Republican, citing the unreliability of capital punishment, commuted the death sentences of all 167 people on death row.Bryan Stevenson -- Just Mercy
- And there was the Quack, who was petitioning to have his death penalty commuted.Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken
- 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
commutation = reduction of a penalty
(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.)
commuted = exchange a penalty for one that is less severe
commuted = reduced
commutes = exchanges a punishment for a less severe punishment
commuted = reduced
commuted = reduced
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 = 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 = the order in which two numbers are multiplied does not change their sum or product (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."
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