Meaning & use
commute
Last updated
Meanings
verbintransitive
To travel regularly between your home and your place of work or study.
Grammar: No object; often followed by 'to' or 'between': commute to work, commute between two cities.
Patterns
- commute to work
- commute between A and B
- commute from A to B
She commutes to London every day by train.
He commutes between his home in the countryside and his office in the city.
Many employees now commute only two or three days a week.
verbtransitivelegalformal
To change a punishment given by a court to one that is less severe.
Grammar: Takes an object: commute a sentence. Often used as 'commute something to something'.
Patterns
- commute a sentence
- commute something to something
The president commuted the sentence from death to life imprisonment.
The court commuted his punishment to a heavy fine.
Several prisoners had their sentences commuted after the new law was passed.
verbtransitivebusinessformal
To replace one payment or obligation with another, especially a single large payment instead of regular smaller ones.
Grammar: Often followed by 'into' or 'for': commute a pension into a lump sum.
Patterns
- commute something into something
- commute a pension
He decided to commute part of his pension into a tax-free lump sum.
The company commuted the annual fee into a one-time payment.
Employees may commute their travel allowance into a company car.
nouncountableinformal
A regular journey between home and work.
Grammar: Used mainly in informal speech; 'a long commute' is very common.
Patterns
- a long commute
- have a commute
My commute takes about forty minutes each way.
After moving house, she has a much shorter commute.
He listens to podcasts during his commute.
Word forms
| third person singular | commutes |
|---|---|
| past tense | commuted |
| past participle | commuted |
| -ing form | commuting |
Common combinations
- commute to work
- I commute to work by bicycle whenever the weather is good.
- commute between cities
- Some professors commute between two cities to teach at different universities.
- long commute
- A long commute can leave you exhausted before the day even starts.
- commute a sentence
- The governor has the power to commute a sentence in exceptional cases.
- daily commute
- The new express train has cut her daily commute by twenty minutes.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- commuter noun
- A person who regularly travels to work.
- commutation noun
- The formal noun for the journey or for reducing a punishment.
- commuting noun
- The activity of traveling regularly to work.
Commonly confused: commute or commune? commute or compute?
commute vs commune
To commune with someone means to communicate closely or share feelings, often in a spiritual way; it is not about traveling to work.
commute vs compute
To compute means to calculate; 'commute' sounds similar but is about travel or reducing a sentence.
Practice
She ______ from Brighton to London every day for work.
Choose one answer.
'Commutes' is the correct third-person singular verb; it does not need 'to' before 'from'. 'Commuting' is the -ing form and cannot be the main verb here, and 'commuted to' would need a different structure.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “commute”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.