A transitive dependency in a database is an indirect relationship between values in the same table that creates a functional dependency. To achieve the normalization standard of Third Normal Form (3NF), you must eliminate any transitive dependency.

A transitive dependency, by its very nature, requires three or more attributes (or database columns) that have a functional dependency on each other. This means that column A in a table depends on column B through an intermediate column C. Let's see how this might work.

In the AUTHORS example above:

But this table introduces a transitive dependency: