Commutability
(Com*mu`ta*bil"i*ty) n. The quality of being commutable.
Commutable
(Com*mut"a*ble) a. [L. commutabilis.] Capable of being commuted or interchanged.
The predicate and subject are not commutable.
Whately.
Commutableness
(Com*mut"a*ble*ness), n. The quality of being commutable; interchangeableness.
Commutation
(Com`mu*ta"tion) n. [L. commutatio: cf. F. commutation.]
1. A passing from one state to another; change; alteration; mutation. [R.]
So great is the commutation that the soul then hated only that which now only it loves.
South.
2. The act of giving one thing for another; barter; exchange. [Obs.]
The use of money is . . . that of saving the commutation of more bulky commodities.
Arbuthnot.
3. (Law) The change of a penalty or punishment by the pardoning power of the State; as, the commutation
of a sentence of death to banishment or imprisonment.
Suits are allowable in the spiritual courts for money agreed to be given as a commutation for penance.
Blackstone.
4. A substitution, as of a less thing for a greater, esp. a substitution of one form of payment for another,
or one payment for many, or a specific sum of money for conditional payments or allowances; as, commutation
of tithes; commutation of fares; commutation of copyright; commutation of rations.
Angle of commutation (Astron.), the difference of the geocentric longitudes of the sun and a planet.
— Commutation of tithes, the substitution of a regular payment, chargeable to the land, for the annual
tithes in kind. — Commutation ticket, a ticket, as for transportation, which is the evidence of a contract
for service at a reduced rate. See 2d Commute, 2.
Commutative
(Com*mut"a*tive) a. [CF. F. commutatif.] Relative to exchange; interchangeable; reciprocal.
— Com*mut"a*tive"ly, adv.
Rich traders, from their success, are presumed . . . to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative
justice.
Burke.
Commutator
(Com"mu*ta`tor) n. (Elec.) A piece of apparatus used for reversing the direction of an
electrical current; an attachment to certain electrical machines, by means of which alternating currents
are made to be continuous or to have the same direction.
Commute
(Com*mute") v. t. [imp. & p. p. Commuted; p. pr. & vb. n. Commuting.] [L. commutare, -
mutatum; com- + mutare to change. See Mutation.] To exchange; to put or substitute something else
in place of, as a smaller penalty, obligation, or payment, for a greater, or a single thing for an aggregate; hence,
to lessen; to diminish; as, to commute a sentence of death to one of imprisonment for life; to commute
tithes; to commute charges for fares.
The sounds water and fire, being once annexed to those two elements, it was certainly more natural to
call beings participating of the first "watery", and the last "fiery", than to commute the terms, and call
them by the reverse.
J. Harris
The utmost that could be obtained was that her sentence should be commuted from burning to beheading.
Macaulay.
Commute
(Com*mute"), v. i.
