Word.ws English Dictionary

metamorphoses

metamorphoses is the plural of metamorphosis.

metamorphoses is the third-person singular simple present indicative of metamorphose.

Meaning of metamorphosis

Noun

metamorphosis (countable and uncountable, plural metamorphoses)

  1. A transformation, such as one performed by magic.
    • With Severne she along doth go, / Her Metamorphosis to show ; / And makes the wand’ring Wy declaim / In honour of the British name.1612, Michael Drayton, “Poly-Olbion”, in The Complete Works of Michael Drayton, volume I, London: J. R. Smith, published 1876, page 147
  2. A noticeable change in character, appearance, function, or condition.
    • The station has been refurbished both at ground level and below ground, where the wide, fluorescently lit platforms are an almost unrecognisable metamorphosis of the dingy, reeking Low Level of old.1960 December, “The Glasgow Suburban Electrification is opened”, in Trains Illustrated, page 713
  3. A change in the form and often habits of an animal after the embryonic stage during normal development (e.g. the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly or a tadpole into a frog).
  4. A change, usually degenerative, in the structure of a specific body tissue.

Meaning of metamorphose

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) Of a moth or insect, to undergo metamorphosis.
  2. (broadly, intransitive) To undergo some transformation.
    • 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...1936, William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!
  3. (transitive) To transform (something) so that it has a completely different appearance.

Questions about metamorphoses

What is metamorphoses the plural of?
Metamorphoses is the plural of metamorphosis.

Words near metamorphoses in the dictionary

  1. metamorphosality
  2. metamorphose
  3. metamorphosed
  4. metamorphoser
  5. metamorphosers
  6. metamorphoses
  7. metamorphosic
  8. metamorphosical
  9. metamorphosing
  10. metamorphosis
  11. metamorphosise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metamorphoses (page history and authors); metamorphosis (page history and authors); metamorphose (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “metamorphoses.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metamorphoses. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.