Definition of "transgress" []

• To go beyond or over (a limit or boundary); exceed or overstep: "to make sure that her characters didn't transgress the parameters of ordinariness” ( Ron Rosenbaum). (verb-transitive)
• To act in violation of (the law, for example). (verb-transitive)
• To commit an offense by violating a law or command; sin. (verb-intransitive)
• To spread over land, especially over the land along a subsiding shoreline. Used of the sea. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "No physical image of a man stepping over a boundary is presented to our minds by the word transgress, nor in using the word comprehension do we picture to ourselves any manual act of grasping."
• "Rather, it had to do with taking responsibility for where he did transgress, which is having an inappropriate relationship with an informant."
• "Ruth Anne: You are one of my faves, as you know, but honestly, when it comes to sex and women, it truly does seem that your compassion capacity for women who, I guess the word is "transgress" for want of a better, in a particular way is oddly low."