transmew

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle French transmuer, from Latin transmūtāre.

Verb[edit]

transmew (third-person singular simple present transmews, present participle transmewing, simple past and past participle transmewed)

  1. (obsolete) To transmute, change.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. [], London: [] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
      Soone into other fits he was transmewed, / Till she to him her gratious speach renewed []
    • 1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation; or, A New Praise of the Old Ass[1], published 1815, pages 97–98:
      [] his sudden ruin ministered matter of most lamentable tears to his dear mother and loving sisters, insomuch, that they were pitifully changed, as some write, into alder trees, as some, into poplars. Sic flevit Clymene : sic et Clymeneides alta: as it might be the mournful church, and her wailing members, wofully transmewed into alders or poplars.

Anagrams[edit]