metamorphose

From French métamorphoser, from Old French metamorphose, from Latin metamorphōsis; see metamorphosis.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌmɛtəˈmɔːˌfəʊz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌmɛtəˈmɔɹˌfoʊz/, /ˌmɛtəˈmɔɹˌfoʊs/
• Hyphenation: met‧a‧mor‧phose

metamorphose (third-person singular simple present metamorphoses, present participle metamorphosing, simple past and past participle metamorphosed)

1. (of a moth or insect, intransitive) To undergo metamorphosis.
2. (by extension, intransitive) To undergo some transformation.
   • 1936, William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!:

     In fact, perhaps this is the pure and perfect incest: the brother realising that the sister’s virginity must be destroyed in order to have existed at all, taking that virginity in the person of the brother-in-law, the man whom he would be if he could become, metamorphose into, the lover, the husband; by whom he would be despoiled, choose for despoiler, if the could become, metamorphose into the sister, the mistress, the bride.

   • 1995, Ian Robottom, Hart Paul, “Behaviorist EE Research: Environmentalism as Individualism”, in The Journal of Environmental Education‎, volume 26, number 2, →DOI, page 8:

     Environmental problems are not objectively existing physical phenomena amenable to reliable analysis and diagnosis. They are social constructions whose meaning and significance metamorphose and wax and wane according to changeable human interest.

   • 1995 January, Cullen Murphy, “In Praise of Snow”, in The Atlantic‎:

     In fresh snow air can pass with little obstruction from the atmosphere through the snowpack to the ground: given life by differences in the temperature gradient, the snowpack breathes. But time changes that. The snow may metamorphose into what is called equitemperature, or ET, snow.

3. (transitive) To transform (something) so that it has a completely different appearance.

• metamorphize
• metamorphosize

• metamorphism
• metamorphosis

• “metamorphose”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “metamorphose”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “metamorphose”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

metamorphose f (plural metamorphoses)

1. Pre-reform spelling (used until 1943 in Brazil and 1911 in Portugal) of metamorfose.