Metamorphoses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The changes or developments that occur as entities evolve from one state to another, particularly within natural or metaphorical frameworks
2. Transformative processes involved in significant shifts from one form to another, often found in biology or artistic expressions
3. The series of alterations that an organism or thing undergoes to assume a different form or state

Etymology: "Metamorphoses" is the plural of "metamorphosis," and the plural is the form most people meet first, thanks to Ovid's famous poem of that name. The Latin title "Metamorphoses" was a borrowing from Greek, where "metamorphōsis" was built from "metá," meaning change, and "morphḗ," meaning form. The sense is literally "a changing of form," which is exactly what the English word still delivers. The Greek elements explain the word's structure: "meta-" signals change or transformation, while "-morph" carries the idea of shape, and "-osis" is a Greek suffix that turns a process into a noun. English took the singular "metamorphosis" from Latin in the 1500s, with the first recorded use dating to 1533, and the plural followed the regular Latin pattern.

Synonyms: transformations, changes, evolutions, transitions, alterations

Antonyms: stagnation, unchanging, invariance, stability, constancy