People refer to many different kinds of changes as metamorphoses, like drastic makeovers, for instance. awkward girls metamorphosed into graceful ballerinas. a complete change of character, appearance, or condition: C She underwent a metamorphosis from a steady player into a ruthless aggressor on the court. When an animal or an insect goes through such a change, its called a metamorphosis. While all these words mean 'to change a thing into a different thing,' metamorphose suggests an abrupt or startling change induced by or as if by magic or a supernatural power. The third, modern, sense, "higher than, transcending, overarching, dealing with the most fundamental matters of," is due to misinterpretation of metaphysics (q.v.) as "science of that which transcends the physical." This has led to a prodigious erroneous extension in modern usage, with meta- affixed to the names of other sciences and disciplines, especially in the academic jargon of literary criticism: Metalanguage (1936) "a language which supplies terms for the analysis of an 'object' language " metalinguistics (by 1949) metahistory (1957), metacommunication, etc. Some common synonyms of metamorphose are convert, transfigure, transform, transmogrify, and transmute. The notion of "changing places with" probably led to the senses of "change of place, order, or nature," which was a principal meaning of the Greek word when used as a prefix (but it also denoted "community, participation in common with pursuing"). This is from PIE *me- "in the middle" (source also of German mit, Gothic miþ, Old English mið "with, together with, among"). ![]() ![]() "higher, beyond " from Greek meta (prep.) "in the midst of in common with by means of between in pursuit or quest of after, next after, behind," in compounds most often meaning "change" of place, condition, etc. ![]() Word-forming element of Greek origin meaning 1.
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