Obs. also 5–7 travers. [Sometimes app. aphetic for A-TRAVERS adv. = F. à travers; sometimes advb. use of TRAVERSE a.] Across; crosswise; athwart; transversely.
c. 1450. Lovelich, Grail, liii. 211. Into A wast lawnde be happede there … and thus travers be Rod tyl Myd Nyht.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. xli. 128. The erle … caused … hyghe trees to be hewen downe, and layde trauers one ouer another.
1640. Howell, Dodona’s Gr. (1645), 2. A square of 550 miles travers.
1725. Bradley’s Fam. Dict., s.v. Willow, Let them be copp’d’ Traverse, and not Obliquely, at one foot or somewhat more from the Ground.
b. Traverse to, of, right across; = B.
1548. Patten, Exped. Scotl., G vij. The furrowes laye trauers to their course.
1654. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I. (1655), 68. Coming counter and travers of our Canon, they received the greater losse.
B. prep. Across. (Cf. A-TRAVERS prep.)
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 3. After them came sir Thomas Brandon … clothed in tissue … and traverse his body, a greate Bauderike of Gold.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., Scot., II. 25. Hardly one by one can passe up, and that … by Grees or steps cut out aslope travers the rock.
