METAMORPHOSIS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Metamorphosis

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/mˌɛtəmˈɔrfəsəs/ Listen

noun

Metamorphosis n. (pl. metamorphoses)

Change of form, or structure; transformation.

(Biol.) A change in the form or function of a living organism, by a natural process of growth or development; as, the metamorphosis of the yolk into the embryo, of a tadpole into a frog, or of a bud into a blossom. Especially, that form of sexual reproduction in which an embryo undergoes a series of marked changes of external form, as the chrysalis stage, pupa stage, etc., in insects. In these intermediate stages sexual reproduction is usually impossible, but they ultimately pass into final and sexually developed forms, from the union of which organisms are produced which pass through the same cycle of changes. See Transformation.

(Physiol.) The change of material of one kind into another through the agency of the living organism; metabolism.

Vegetable metamorphosis (Bot.), the doctrine that flowers are homologous with leaf buds, and that the floral organs are transformed leaves.

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Etymology of 'Metamorphosis'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Metamorphosis" Quotes from Famous Books

... its peculiar beauty of holiness; but that beauty is the expression of its essential truth, and the essence itself is so strong that it bestows upon its embodiment even the power of partial metamorphosis with all other vital relations. How many daughters have in the devotion of their tenderness, become as mothers to their own fathers! Who has not known some sister more of a wife to a man than she for whose sake he neglected ...

— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... of the metamorphosis of forces, which was begun a century ago by Count Rumford when he recognized heat as a mode of molecular motion, was consummated about the middle of the century, when Doctor Joule showed mathematically just how much heat ...

— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... myself with one of my two white shirts, and with the change of raiment which had been tight squeezed in my portmanteau. The old overcoat was the best part of it, as in a finite world it often is. I sold my felt hat to Zekiel, and appeared with a light travelling-cap. I do not know how Fausta liked my metamorphosis. I only know that, like butterflies, for a day or two after they go through theirs, I ...

— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... The higher Enthusiasm of man's nature is for the while without Exponent; yet does it continue indestructible, unweariedly active, and work blindly in the great chaotic deep: thus Sect after Sect, and Church after Church, bodies itself forth, and melts again into new metamorphosis. ...

— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... began to be so excessively fond of him, that the little fellow was obliged to caution them at last—for the good, as he said, of society; he recommended them to draw lots, for he could not gratify them all; but promised when his metamorphosis was complete, that the one chosen should become the happy Mrs. Poinsinet; or, to ...

— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

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