Other forms: transits
Transit is passing through an airport or country without entering it. In transit, a transit passenger, a transit visa.
In transit also means goods on their way: damaged in transit, lost in transit — which is the commonest use. In American English, transit means public transport: mass transit, transit authority. In astronomy, a transit is the passage of one body across the face of another, and the transit of Venus is the famous case, observable about twice a century. Note transitional and transitory, which are different words from the same root.
1nountransitPassing through a place without entering it.
“We had a long wait in the transit lounge in Dubai before our flight to Sydney.”
2nounstateThe state of goods being on their way.
“The vase must have been broken in transit, because the box was crushed.”
transit is a passing through.
Latin transire means to go across — trans plus ire, to go. Transit, transient and transition all describe crossing rather than arriving, which is exactly the point of a transit lounge.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁ey-
Latin
trānseō — to go across, pass in, pass through
French
transit
English, today
transit
From French transit. From French -, from Latin trānseō (“to go across, pass in, pass through”), from trans + ire.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA