commute
Definitions
To travel regularly between one's home and place of work.
通勤；定期在家与工作地之间往返。
To reduce (a judicial sentence) to a less severe one.
（法律）减刑，将判决改为较轻的处罚。
The regular journey between home and work.
通勤路程，上下班的往返路程。
Root Breakdown
Root-derivedcom- (completely) + mut (change/exchange) = 'change thoroughly.' Two modern meanings grew from this. (1) Legal: to commute a sentence is to thoroughly change a harsh punishment into a milder one. (2) Travel: 19th-century railway 'commutation tickets' let riders exchange many single fares for one cheap season ticket — so commute came to mean traveling daily to work.
Root mut still carries 6 more wordsWhy It Means This
Commute is the family's most surprising word because its two everyday meanings seem unrelated, yet both come from com- + mūtāre ('change/exchange completely'). The legal sense is the older and more literal: a death sentence commuted to life imprisonment is a punishment 'changed' into a lighter one. The commuting-to-work sense is a 19th-century American coinage: railways sold discounted 'commutation tickets' that let a rider exchange many separate fares for one season pass. Holders were called commuters, and the daily home-to-work trip became 'the commute.'
Common Collocations
- 1.daily commute日常通勤
- 2.commute to work通勤上班
- 3.long commute漫长的通勤
- 4.commute a sentence减刑
- 5.commute by train乘火车通勤
Example Sentences
- 1.
I commute to the office by train every weekday.
- 2.
Her daily commute takes almost two hours each way.
- 3.
The governor agreed to commute his sentence to twenty years.
- 4.
Working from home spared me a long, stressful commute.