[a. F. transmutation (12th c. Hatz.-Darm.), or ad. late L. transmūtātiōn-em, n. of action from transmūtāre to change, shift, TRANSMUTE.] The action or process of transmuting or changing; the fact or condition of being transmuted or changed.
1. Change of condition; mutation; sometimes implying alternation or exchange. Obs. or arch.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., II. 297. Þus seiþ James, þat at God is not transmutacioun.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, III. 879. Of dyvers transmutacions Of estates and eke of Regions. Ibid. (c. 1398), Fortune, 1. This wrecched worldes transmutacioun As wele and [v.r. or] woo, nowe poure and nowe honour.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., I. xviii. 107. In length of tyme ful greet transmutacioun and chaunge is alwey maad in and aboute the circumstauncis of politik gouernauncis.
c. 1450. Mankind, iii. 903, in Macro Plays, 34. Thynke and remembyr, þe world ys but a wanite, as yt ys prowyd daly by d[i]uerse transmutacyon.
1570. Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), 169/1. Busy you to purchase that palace that euer shal endure in ioy without transmutation.
1851. Longf., Gold. Leg., III. 274. The constant change and transmutation Of action and of contemplation.
2. Change of one thing into another; conversion into something different; alteration, transformation. Also with a and pl. a case or instance of this.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. l. (xxxii. in Bodl. MS., lf. 302 b/2). Þere may not be passinge transmutacion and chaunginge for þere is defaute of hete & of humoure.
1412–20. Lydg., Chron. Troy, I. 58. That a sodeyn transmutacioun Was made of amptis to form of men anon.
1545. Raynold, Byrth Mankynde, 20. When that nature is dysposed to make a transmutation of any matter.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., III. 65. Alterations, transmutations, & sometimes euen real transubstantiations of white wine into Claret.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., iv. 139. The supposed change of Worms into Flies is no real transmutation.
1725. trans. Dupin’s Eccl. Hist. 17th C., I. VI. iii. 237. He [Calvin] attacks Transubstantiation. He acknowledges that some of the Ancients made use of the Term Transmutation.
1782. Priestley, Corrupt. Chr., II. VI. 7. It is too early … for … the transmutation of the bread and wine.
1879. trans. De Quatrefages’ Hum. Spec., 9. Here … is no transmutation of force similar to that in a machine worked by electricity or heat.
1896. Dk. Argyll, Philos. Belief, 69. The inconceivable power of transmutation exerted by that which we call life.
3. spec. a. Alch. The (supposed or alleged) conversion of one element or substance into another, esp. of a baser metal into gold or silver. Also allusively.
1478. Coventry Leet Bk., 422. To practise a true and a profitable conclusion in the Cunnying of transmutacion of metails.
1605. Timme, Quersit., III. 183. Alchymie … ordereth and finisheth the transmutations of things.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 63, ¶ 7. Not one appears to have desisted from the task of transmutation, from the conviction of its impossibility.
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 11. The processes supposed to relate to the transmutation of metals, and the elixir of life.
1872. Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 413. Alchemy, or the transmutation of metals, was virtually the parent of the modern science of chemistry.
b. Law. Transfer: usually Transmutation of possession, transfer or change of ownership.
1488–9. Act 4 Hen. VII., c. 4. An Acte for the passing and transmutacion of landes without Fyne. Ibid. Such persones … shall nowe lawfully make therof fieoffmentes and transmutacion of possession by dede or dedis … without eny fyne for the said feoffement or transmutacion of possession.
1602. Fulbecke, 1st Pt. Parallel, 33. He held that in euery exchaunge there must be a mutuall transmutation of the possession.
1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), II. 358. A distinction must be made between remainders limited in conveyances operating without transmutation of possession, and conveyances operating by transmutation of possession. Ibid., IV. 149. Those conveyances derived from the statute of uses, which are said to operate by transmutation of possession.
1876. Digby, Real Prop., vi. 292. In these cases uses are said to be created by a conveyance operating by way of transmutation of possession; that is, they accompany one of the recognised modes of conveying the seisin at common law—feoffment, fine, or recovery.
† c. Rhet. Transferred use of a word; metonymy. Obs. rare.
1553. T. Wilson, Rhet., 93. Transmutacion helpeth much for varietie, the whiche is when a woorde hath a proper signification of the owne, and beyng referred to an other thyng, hath an other meanyng.
† d. = TRANSMIGRATION 4. Obs. rare–1.
1594. R. Ashley, trans. Loys le Roy, 68 b. The transmutation of soules from bodie to bodie.
† e. Her. = COUNTERCHANGING. Cf. TRANSMUTED b. Obs.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, V. ii. 242. Counter-changing or Transmutation is an Entermixture of seuerall Metals or Colours, both in Field and Charge, occasioned by the apposition of some one or moe lines of partition.
f. Biol. Conversion or transformation of one species into another; spec. applied to the form of evolution or development propounded by Lamarck (1815–22). Also attrib.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 525. The Transmutation of Plants, one into another, is inter Magnalia Naturæ: for the Transmutation of Species is, in the vulgar philosophy, pronounced Impossible:… but seeing there appear some manifest Instances of it, the Opinion of Impossibilitie is to bee rejected.
1691. Ray, Creation, II. (1692), 91. The most that can be inferred from hence is a transmutation of Species.
1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., ix. 194. Transmutation of one species into another.
1859. Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms, Transmutation,… a term adopted by Lamarck and his followers to express their hypothetical views of the derivation of existing species from preceding species, by slow and gradual Transmutations of one form of organisation into another form.
1863. Lyell, Antiq. Man, i. 3. Recent modifications of the Lamarckian theory of progressive development and transmutation.
1879. trans. De Quatrefages’ Hum. Spec., 90. Their ideas may be arranged in two principal groups according as their authors favour a rapid or a gradual transmutation.
g. Math. † (a) = PERMUTATION 3 b (obs.). (b) = TRANSFORMATION 3 c (rare or obs.).
1674. Jeake, Arith. (1696), 576. Transmutation … serveth to show what Number of Changes may be made by any Number of … things in their Places or Positions.
1743. Emerson, Fluxions, I. 53. The 21st and all the following Forms relate to the Transmutation of Fluxions.
4. attrib., as transmutation doctrine, theory; transmutation glaze, trade name of a porcelain glaze having a changeable iridescent luster.
1860. Huxley, Lay Serm., xii. (1870), 306. The so-called ‘transmutation’ hypothesis considers that all existing species are the result of the modification of pre-existing species, and those of their predecessors, by agencies similar to those which at the present day produce varieties and races.
1876. trans. Haeckel’s Hist. Creat., I. i. 4. The theory which, through Darwin, has been placed at the head of all our knowledge of nature, is usually called the Doctrine of Filiation, or the Theory of Descent. Others term it the Transmutation Theory.
Hence Transmutational a., of or pertaining to transmutation, esp. in sense 3 f.
1858. Q. Rev., XCIII. 80. Far from giving support to the transmutational, pantheistic, or any other forms of Atheism, the conclusions of the Homologist [Owen], being based on rigorous deduction from carefully-observed facts, furnish new arguments in support of the highest attainable truths.
1861. Wilson & Geikie, Mem. E. Forbes, ii. 41. I can find no room, however, for transmutational ingenuity in writing of Edward Forbes.
1907. Edin. Rev., Jan., 31. The crude transmutational theory.
