| Metamorphic | a. [ See Metamorphosis. ] 1. Subject to change; changeable; variable. [ 1913 Webster ] 2. Causing a change of structure. [ 1913 Webster ] 3. (Geol.) Pertaining to, produced by, or exhibiting, certain changes which minerals or rocks may have undergone since their original deposition; -- especially applied to the recrystallization which sedimentary rocks have undergone through the influence of heat and pressure, after which they are called metamorphic rocks. [ 1913 Webster ] |
| Metamorphism | n. (Geol.) The state or quality of being metamorphic; the process by which the material of rock masses has been more or less recrystallized by heat, pressure, etc., as in the change of sedimentary limestone to marble. Murchison. [ 1913 Webster ] |
| Metamorphosis | n.; pl. Metamorphoses [ L., fr. Gr. &unr_;, fr. &unr_; to be transformed; meta` beyond, over + morfh` form. ] [ 1913 Webster ] 1. Change of form, or structure; transformation. [ 1913 Webster ] 2. (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. [ 1913 Webster ] 3. (Physiol.) The change of material of one kind into another through the agency of the living organism; metabolism. [ 1913 Webster ]
Vegetable metamorphosis (Bot.), the doctrine that flowers are homologous with leaf buds, and that the floral organs are transformed leaves. [ 1913 Webster ]
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