v. [ad. L. transfigūrāre to change the shape of (f. TRANS- + figūra form, shape, figure); or a. F. transfigurer (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. trans. To alter the figure or appearance of; to change in outward appearance; to transform.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 18497 (Cott.). Þai war transfigurd als tite, Was neuer i-wis snau sa quite.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter xc. 6. When þe fende transfigurs him in aungel of light.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 247. Venus, if it be thy wil Yow in this gardyn thus to transfigure.
1412–20. Lydg., Chron. Troy, II. 913. So craftily þei koude hem transfigure, Conformyng hem to þe chaunt[e]plure.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, VI. 91. Thow transfigowryt Wallace out off his weill.
1547. Bk. Marchauntes, e viij b. Satan … by cautyle transfigurynge hym into an angell of lyght.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. xii. (Arb.), 174. Your single wordes may be many waies transfigured to make the meetre or verse more tunable and melodious.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 193. Wilde-goats are transfigured into many similitudes.
1855. Pusey, Doctr. Real Presence, Note Q. 230. The Sacraments, which, by the mystery of the sacred prayer, are transfigured into Body and Blood.
1880. McCarthy, Own Times, III. xxxii. 49. The mutiny was transfigured into a revolutionary war.
b. In reference to the Transfiguration of Christ.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., II. 57. Þis gospel telliþ how þat Crist was transfigurid in siȝt of þree apostlis.
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), x. 114. In þat hille Thabor, oure lord transfigured him before seynt Peter, seynt Iohn & seynt Iame.
1526. Tindale, Mark ix. 2. And he was transfigured before them.
1911. J. A. Robinson, in Encycl. Brit., XV. 381/2. They saw Jesus transfigured in a radiance of glory.
c. intr. for refl. rare.
1840. Browning, Sordello, II. 214. He no genius more Transfiguring in fire, or wave, or air, At will.
2. trans. fig. (in allusion to the Transfiguration of Christ): To elevate, glorify, idealize, spiritualize.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., II. 58. Þus men sein þat transfiguring is turnyng into glorious forme.
1687. Boyle, Martyrd. Theodora, viii. (1703), 116. I think our notions will then be raised … and our love and other affections, will be transfigured, as well as our bodies.
1841. Myers, Cath. Th., IV. ii. 185. His education becomes devotion, and his morality is transfigured into Religion.
1876. E. Mellor, Priesth., i. 15. Temple, priest, and sacrifice were employed and transfigured into glorious spiritual significations.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 113. [Stephen’s] whole being was transfigured by a consciousness which illuminated his very countenance.
† 3. To transfer by a figure. (A literalism of translation.) Obs.
1382. Wyclif, 1 Cor. iv. 6. This thing I haue transfigurid [Vulg. transfiguravi] in to me and in to Apollo; that in vs ȝe lerne.
Hence Transfigured ppl. a. († in Geom. [quots. 1571] applied to a solid in which plane faces are substituted for the original solid angles); Transfiguring vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
c. 1380. [see 2].
1571. Digges, Pantom., IV. Gg i b. This solides inscribed Octaedrons side is triple to the medietie of his contayning transfigured Tetraedrons side. Ibid., Gg iij b. A Transfigured Octaedron is a Geometricall Figure incompassed with 14 bases, whereof 8 are equall equiangle Hexagonall playnes, and the other 6 are equall squares.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. v. 805. Bodies … luciform or lucid, like to our Saviour’s then transfigured body.
1717. Garth, trans. Ovid, Enchantm. Circe, 33. The dow’r desir’d is his transfigur’d friends.
1846. Trench, Mirac., Introd. (1862), 93. Their transforming, transfiguring power.
1880. N. Smyth, Old Faiths in New Light, iii. (1882), 98. It can shine, a steady and transfiguring light of life, for the world.
