Other forms: transposed, transposing, transposes
To transpose is to move a whole piece into a different key. Transpose it down a tone, transposed for clarinet, transpose at sight.
Singers ask for it constantly, because a song that sits badly for one voice sits well a third lower. Some instruments are transposing by nature — written C on a B flat clarinet sounds B flat. Outside music, to transpose is to swap the order of two things.
1verbtransposeTo move a piece of music into a different key.
“The pianist transposed the song into a lower key so the singer could reach the notes.”
2verbswapTo swap the order of two things.
“I transposed two digits in the phone number, so my call went to a stranger.”
transpose is a moving.
Latin transponere means to put across — trans plus ponere, to place.
Proto-Indo-European
*tḱey-
Latin
trānspositus
Old French
transposer
Middle English
transposen
English, today
transpose
Built from
From Middle English transposen, from Old French transposer, from Latin trānspositus, perfect passive participle of trānspōnō (“to put across”), from trāns (“across”) + pōnō (“to put”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA