transpose
verb
Simple meaning
To change the position or order of things.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
transpohzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
tɹænsˈpoʊz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Change the order or arrangement of
“Dyslexics often transpose letters in a word.”
transitive
To reverse or change the order of (two or more things); to swap or interchange.
Change key
“Can you transpose this fugue into G major?”
Put (a piece of music) into another key
transitivemusic
To rewrite or perform (a piece) in another key.
Transfer a quantity from one side of an equation to the other side reversing its sign, in order to maintain equality
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Change the order or arrangement of
Used this way, transpose is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“Dyslexics often transpose letters in a word.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- permute , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use transpose
- “Dyslexics often transpose letters in a word.”verb
- “Can you transpose this fugue into G major?”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.