Tran-siʹtion, n.
(tran-sizhʹ-un, 109) (Synop., § 130), n. [Fr. transition, Sp. transicion, It. transizione, Pr. & Lat. transitio. See supra.]
Sense 1. Passage from one place or state to another; change; as, the transition of the weather from hot to cold.
The spots are of the same color throughout, there being an immediate transition from white to black. Woodward.
Sense 2. (Mus.) A passing directly from one key to another.
Sense 3. (Rhet.) A passing from one subject to another.
He with transition sweet new speech resumes. Milton.
☞ This word is sometimes pronounced tran-sizhʹun; but, according to Walker, Smart, and most other authorities, the customary and preferable pronunciation is tran-sishʹun. It is true that this latter mode violates analogy,—ti followed by any one of the vowels a, e, and o, and preceded by an accented syllable not ending in s or x, having properly the sound of sh, and not of zh;—but the irregularity is sought to be justified on the ground that the ear unconsciously predetermines that since the second syllable began with the surd consonant s, it ought, for the sake of variety, to end with a consonant of a different kind. Many speakers, however, avoid the unpleasant sequence of the surd sibilants s and sh by making the former sonant, and not the latter, saying tran-zishʹun, instead of tran-sishʹun; and this practice seems worthy of encouragement as tending to reduce the number of anomalies in the almost impracticable orthoëpy of our mother-tongue.