Word.ws English Dictionary

metaphasis

/məˈtæfəsɪs/

metaphasis noun: the accidental transposition of part of the sounds of two words in a phrase; the production of spoonerisms. Also the alternative form of metaphase.

Noun

metaphasis (uncountable)

  1. The accidental transposition of part of the sounds of two words in a phrase; the production of spoonerisms.
    • 'Oxford's great metaphasiarch', as Punch once called him, was seldom guilty of metaphasis, or the transposition of sounds. What he transposed was ideas.1953, Sir Ernest Barker, Age and Youth: Memories of Three Universities ; And, Father of the Man, page 46
    • Dr. Ashok suffered from a mild form of metaphasis. He made Spoonerisms.1979, Gore Vidal, Kalki, →ISBN, page 31

Also used as

metaphasis is also the alternative form of metaphase.

metaphasis is also the alternative form of metaphysis.

Examples of metaphasis in a sentence

  • But couldn’t it be that there is a distinction to be made between ‘metaphasis’ and ‘metathesis’?1986 October 23, Adrian Room, “Letters”, in London Review of Books:
  • The technical term for this transposition is metaphasis.2009, Denise Sutherland, Word Searches For Dummies, →ISBN, page 76:

Forms of metaphasis

pluralmetaphases

Questions about metaphasis

What does metaphasis mean?
Metaphasis means the accidental transposition of part of the sounds of two words in a phrase; the production of spoonerisms.
How do you use metaphasis in a sentence?
But couldn’t it be that there is a distinction to be made between ‘metaphasis’ and ‘metathesis’?
What part of speech is metaphasis?
Metaphasis is a noun.
How do you pronounce metaphasis?
Metaphasis is pronounced /məˈtæfəsɪs/.
What is the plural of metaphasis?
The plural of metaphasis is metaphases.

Words near metaphasis in the dictionary

  1. metaph
  2. metaph.
  3. metaphase
  4. metaphases
  5. metaphasic
  6. metaphasis
  7. metaphedrone
  8. metaphen
  9. metaphenomena
  10. metaphenomenal
  11. metaphenomenon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metaphasis (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: “metaphasis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metaphasis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.