TRANSMUTE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does transmute mean? 

• TRANSMUTE (verb)
  The verb TRANSMUTE has 3 senses:

1. change in outward structure or looks

2. change or alter in form, appearance, or nature

3. alter the nature of (elements)

  Familiarity information: TRANSMUTE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRANSMUTE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they transmute    ... he / she / it transmutes   
Past simple: transmuted   
Past participle: transmuted   
-ing form: transmuting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Change in outward structure or looks

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

metamorphose; transform; transmute

Context example:

The salesman metamorphosed into an ugly beetle

Hypernyms (to "transmute" is one way to...):

change (undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "transmute"):

aurify (transform into gold)

become; turn (undergo a change or development)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Change or alter in form, appearance, or nature

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

transform; transmute; transubstantiate

Context example:

transubstantiate one element into another

Hypernyms (to "transmute" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "transmute"):

transubstantiate (change (the Eucharist bread and wine) into the body and blood of Christ)

sorcerise; sorcerize (transform or change by means of sorcery)

stalinise; stalinize (transform in accordance with Stalin's policies)

destalinise; destalinize (counteract the effects and policies of Stalinism)

process; work; work on (shape, form, or improve a material)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

transmutation (an act that changes the form or character or substance of something)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Alter the nature of (elements)

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "transmute" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Domain category:

chemical science; chemistry (the science of matter; the branch of the natural sciences dealing with the composition of substances and their properties and reactions)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

transmutation ((physics) the change of one chemical element into another (as by nuclear decay or radioactive bombardment))

 Context examples 

He had felt the big thing, but he had failed to transmute it.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Those two beautiful sonnets that you transmuted into the cow that was accounted the worst milker in the township.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

But I was learning the sweet lesson for myself that the soul transmuted itself, expressed itself, through the flesh; that the sight and sense and touch of the loved one’s hair was as much breath and voice and essence of the spirit as the light that shone from the eyes and the thoughts that fell from the lips.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

In the alchemy of his brain, trigonometry and mathematics and the whole field of knowledge which they betokened were transmuted into so much landscape.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"There'll be a check at the post-office, I know, and we'll transmute it into beautiful buckwheat flour, a gallon of maple syrup, and a new pair of overshoes for you."

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The meat of them has been transmuted in the alembic of Martin Eden's mind and poured into 'The Shame of the Sun,' and one day Martin Eden will be famous, and not the least of his fame will rest upon that work.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I sing a song, and thanks to the magazine editors I transmute my song into a waft of the west wind sighing through our redwoods, into a murmur of waters over mossy stones that sings back to me another song than the one I sang and yet the same song wonderfully—er—transmuted.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It is a great task to transmute feeling and sensation into speech, written or spoken, that will, in turn, in him who reads or listens, transmute itself back into the selfsame feeling and sensation.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Mine is no squalor of song that cannot transmute itself, with proper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cottage, a sweet mountain- meadow, a grove of redwoods, an orchard of thirty-seven trees, one long row of blackberries and two short rows of strawberries, to say nothing of a quarter of a mile of gurgling brook.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)