Transcend (verb) – to rise above or go beyond the limits of

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcend

From “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood

I came across this word while reading “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood. It appears towards the end of the reading as the author talks about word usage, it caught my interest because I had an idea of what it meant but didn’t know it’s exact definition so it threw off my understanding of what the reader was trying to say.

“Another thing. Good and wicked. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgmental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn’t it?”

After reading the definition of the word I better understand the context of how the author was using it in that part of the text. As seen in the quote, they used it to describe how they should improve on the words they used previously by using better words to express their message. The words “good” and “wicked” weren’t good enough so they decided to go above and beyond to use better words, or to “Transcend” their word use.