metamorphosis
(mɛtəˈmɔːfəsɪs)
Pl. metamorphoses (-siːz).
[a. L. metamorphōsis, a. Gr. µεταµόρϕωσις, n. of action f. µεταµορϕοῦν to transform, f. µετα- meta- + µορϕή form. Cf. metamorphose n.]
1. The action or process of changing in form, shape or substance; esp. transformation by magic or witchcraft.
| 1533 More Debell. Salem Wks. 929/1 Salem & Bizans sometime two great townes..were.. with a meruailouse metamorphosis, enchaunted and turned into twoo englishe men. 1618 Bolton Florus (1636) 77 As if by a kind of metamorphosis, the gods had..changed trees to Vessels. 1674 Govt. Tongue xii. 204 One would think we were fallen into an Age of Metamorphosis, and that the Brutes did (not only Poetically and in fiction) but really speak. For the talk of many is so bestial, that [etc.]. 1794 Sullivan View Nat. IV. 179 From the metempsychosis, however, arose the doctrine of the metamorphosis. 1856 Ruskin Mod. Paint. III. iv. xvii. §6 A fourth..will begin to change them in his fancy into dragons and monsters, and lose his grasp of the scene in fantastic metamorphosis. 1869 H. F. Tozer Highl. Turkey II. 264 The points..on which the stories turn are transformations and metamorphoses of various kinds. |
b. A metamorphosed form.
| 1589 Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 73 Samela..stoode amazed like Medusaes Metamorphosis. 1638 Randolph Hey for Honesty ii. i, But come you pig-hogs, let us leave jesting. I restore you to your old metamorphosis, as you may see in the first leaf of Virgil's Bucolics. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede vi, An amount of fat on the nape of her neck, which made her look like the metamorphosis of a white sucking-pig. |
2. transf. A complete change in the appearance, circumstances, condition, character of a person, of affairs, etc.
| a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI 161 Ihon Cade..departed secretly in habite disguysed, into Sussex: but all his metamorphosis or transfiguracion litle prevailed. 1598 R. Barckley Felic. Man (1631) 195 The Hermit..asked him how it chanced that he was fallen into such a metamorphosis? 1656 Earl of Monmouth tr. Boccalini's Advts. fr. Parnass. i. xxix. (1674) 32 The Metamorphosis is too great, when from being a private man, one becomes a Prince. 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. I. 825 News was brought him of a metamorphosis in the State at home. 1791 Boswell Johnson an. 1753 (1816) I. 233 Whatever agreement a Chief might make with any of his clan, the Heralds-Office could not admit of the metamorphosis. 1820 W. Scoresby Acc. Arctic Reg. I. 386 The mountains along the whole coast, assumed the most fantastic forms... These varied and sometimes beautiful metamorphoses..suggested the reality of fairy descriptions. 1853 C. Brontë Villette xxvii, His visage changed as from a mask to a face:..I know not that I have ever seen in any other human face an equal metamorphosis. 1857 Buckle Civiliz. viii. 519 By a singular metamorphosis, the secular principle was now represented by the Catholics, and the theological principle by the Protestants. 1867 L. M. Child Rom. Repub. v. 64 The disguises were quickly assumed, and the metamorphosis made Rosa both blush and smile. |
3. In scientific uses. a. Physiol. Change of form in animals and plants, or their parts, during life; esp. in Ent., a change or one of a series of changes which a metabolous insect undergoes, resulting in complete alteration of form and habit. coarctate metamorphosis (Ent.): see coarctate b.
| 1665 Phil. Trans. I. 88 Their [silkworms] metamorphoses are four. 1722 Quincy Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Metamorphosis, is applied by Harvey to the Changes an Animal undergoes both in its Formation and Growth; and by several to the various Shapes some Insects in particular pass through, as the Silk Worm and the like. 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XIV. 712/1 A new form or change of appearance is always implied in metamorphosis or transformation..; as when the lobes of a seed are converted into seminal leaves. 1828 Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. II. 232 The transformations or metamorphoses of insects embrace three states. 1835–6 Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 106/1 We find that the whole of its [sc. the terrestrial salamander's] metamorphosis takes place whilst in the oviduct. 1881 F. M. Balfour Comp. Embryol II. 113 The change undergone by the Tadpole in its passage into the Frog is so considerable as to deserve the name of a metamorphosis. 1888 Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 161 A perfect metamorphosis, such as that of Sphinx, with three well-marked stages, larva, pupa, and imago. 1897 Parker & Haswell Zool. II. xiii. 32 It [the Ascidian]..soon begins to undergo the retrogressive metamorphosis by which it attains the adult condition. |
b. Morphol. The modification of organs or structures in form or function (including teratology).
| 1839 Penny Cycl. XV. 131/2 Metamorphosis of organs, in the Vegetable Kingdom, consists in an adaptation of one and the same organ to several different purposes. 1849 Balfour Man. Bot. §641. 307 The different parts of the flower may be changed into each other, or into true leaves... These changes may take place from without inwards, by an ascending or direct metamorphosis, as in the case of petals becoming stamens; or from within outwards, by descending or retrograde metamorphosis, as when stamens become petals. |
c. Evolution. Secular change of form.
| 1847–9 Todd's Cycl. Anat. IV. 623/2 A unity which has undergone such an infinitely graduated metamorphosis of its parts as to yield these unequal skeletal forms. 1876 Ray Lankester tr. Haeckel's Hist. Creat. I. 90 His [Goethe's] idea of metamorphosis is almost synonymous with the theory of development. 1903 tr. Strasburger's Bot. (ed. 2) i. 10 The various modifications which the primitive form has passed through constitute its metamorphosis. |
d. Histol. The change of form which goes on in the elements of living organic structures; e.g. in blood-corpuscles, animal or vegetable tissue, etc. Path. ‘The morbid change of the elements of tissues into another form of structure’ (Funk's Stand. Dict.).
| 1839–47 Carpenter in Todd's Cycl. Anat. III. 750/1 The production of the simple structureless membranes..must be attributed, we think, to the consolidation of a thin layer of blastema, rather than to any metamorphosis of cells. 1845–6 G. E. Day tr. Simon's Anim. Chem. I. 133 The metamorphosis [of blood-corpuscles] occurs in the peripheral system. 1857 G. Bird's Urin. Deposits (ed. 5) 440 Every animal developes,..during the process of metamorphosis of tissue, a series of nitrogenized substances. 1869 E. A. Parkes Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3) 184 There is a much more rapid metamorphosis of tissue in carnivorous animals. 1882 Vines Sachs' Bot. 708 These reserve-materials [in dormant seeds, bulbs, tubers] must undergo repeated Metamorphosis while they are being conveyed to the growing organs. |
e. Chem. The change of a compound to a new form; esp. ‘the chemical change occurring in a compound substance under the influence of some other body which itself does not change’ (Syd. Soc. Lex. 1890).
| 1843 R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. Introd. Lect. 34 Professor Liebig applied the name of metamorphosis to those chemical actions in which a given compound by the presence of a peculiar substance, is made to resolve itself into two or more compounds. 1853 Carpenter Hum. Physiol. (ed. 4) 47 When there is a deficiency of fatty matters in the food, these may be formed by a metamorphosis of its saccharine constituents. Ibid. 52 The chemical metamorphoses which take place in the economy. Ibid. 90 The lactic acid, chiefly generated in the substance of the muscles (probably by the metamorphosis of a saccharine compound). 1862 Miller Elem. Chem. III. 58, 61 Production of Chemical Metamorphoses...1. Oxidation...2. Metamorphoses by Reduction...3. Metamorphoses by Substitution. |