Definition

1. Verb:

   • To travel regularly between one's home and place of work or study: To make a repeated journey, typically over a significant distance.
   • To exchange or substitute one thing for another, especially to replace a penalty with a less severe one: To change a punishment, obligation, or form into another.
   • (Mathematics, Physics) To be interchangeable in order without changing the result: Used of operators or elements in an operation.

2. Noun:

   • A regular journey made between one's home and place of work or study: The trip itself, often implying a certain distance and routine.

Usage Examples

• Verb (Travel):

  • She commutes to the city every day by train.
  • To reduce his carbon footprint, he started to commute by bicycle.

• Verb (Substitute/Reduce):

  • The judge decided to commute the sentence from life imprisonment to 20 years.
  • The company allows employees to commute unused vacation days for pay.

• Verb (Mathematics/Physics):

  • In this equation, the two matrices commute, meaning A x B = B x A.

• Noun:

  • His daily commute is over an hour each way.
  • The high-speed train has made the commute much more bearable.

Advanced Usage

• "To commute between": To travel regularly between two specific places.

  • He commutes between the London office and the Paris headquarters.

• "To commute a sentence" (Legal term): To officially reduce the severity of a judicial sentence.

  • The governor has the power to commute a death sentence.

Variants and Related Words

• Commuter (n): A person who travels regularly over some distance to work.

  • The train was packed with weary commuters.

• Commutable (adj): Capable of being exchanged or traveled.

  • The prison is located in a remote, scarcely commutable area.

Synonyms

• Travel (v): To go from one place to another.
• Substitute (v): To use or add in place of another.
• Reduce (v): To make smaller or less in amount (specific to penalties).

Related Phrasal Verbs

(Note: "Commute" is not commonly used in phrasal verb constructions. Its meanings are typically expressed directly.)

Related Idioms

• "Kill the commute": To eliminate the need for a regular journey to work, often by working remotely.
  • Getting a remote job finally allowed him to kill the commute.

Noun

1. a regular journey of some distance to and from your place of work
   • there is standing room only on the high-speed commute

Verb

1. exchange or replace with another, usually of the same kind or category
   • Could you convert my dollars into pounds?
   • He changed his name
   • convert centimeters into inches
   • convert holdings into shares
2. exchange a penalty for a less severe one
3. change the order or arrangement of
   • Dyslexics often transpose letters in a word
4. travel back and forth regularly, as between one's place of work and home
5. exchange positions without a change in value
   • These operators commute with each other