# commute

/kəmˈjut/ (US) · /kəmjˈuːt/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/commute
Updated: 2026-06-20

## Senses

### 1. travel to work

verb · CEFR B1

to travel regularly between your home and your place of work or school.

For teachers: to travel a significant distance between one's place of residence and place of work on a regular basis. Intransitive in this sense.

- She has to commute for an hour by train every morning to get to her office.
- Many professionals now prefer remote work to avoid the exhaustion of a daily ninety-minute commute into the city centre.

Usage: Often used with the preposition 'to' or 'from'.

### 2. reduce a punishment

verb · CEFR C1 · Formal

to change a legal punishment to one that is less severe.

For teachers: to substitute a legal penalty or judicial sentence with a less severe one. Transitive; typically used in high-level legal or political contexts.

- The governor decided to commute the prisoner's life sentence to twenty years.
- The president exercised his executive power to commute the sentences of several non-violent offenders during his final week in office.

### 3. mathematical order

verb · CEFR C2 · Technical

in math, when the order of numbers does not change the final result.

For teachers: to satisfy the commutative property, where the order of operands does not affect the result of an operation.

- In basic addition, the numbers commute because two plus three is the same as three plus two.
- While addition and multiplication of real numbers commute, matrix multiplication generally does not, making the order of operations critical.

### 4. the journey to work

noun · CEFR B1

the regular trip you make between your home and your work.

For teachers: a regular journey of some distance between one's home and place of work.

- His morning commute is much faster now that he takes the new highway.
- The city's aging infrastructure has made the daily commute increasingly unreliable for thousands of suburban rail passengers.

## Examples

- I commute to the office by train every day.
- She commutes forty minutes each way, using the time to read or listen to podcasts.
- The rising cost of fuel has forced many employees to reconsider their daily commute, with some opting for remote work to avoid the stress of rush-hour traffic.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.