- transcend
- mid-14c., from L. transcendere "climb over or beyond, surmount," from trans- "beyond" + scandere "to climb" (see scan (v.)). Transcendentalism first recorded 1803, in reference to the philosophy of Kant; applied 1842 to the religio-philosophical views of Emerson and similar New England thinkers. Transcendental meditation is recorded from 1966.