| 释义 |
transmutation|trɑːnsmjuːˈteɪʃən, træns-, -nz-|
[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.
c1380Wyclif Sel. Wks. II. 297 Þus seiþ James, þat at God is not transmutacioun. c1384Chaucer H. Fame iii. 879 Of dyvers transmutacions Of estates and eke of Regions. c1398― Fortune 1 This wrecched worldes transmutacioun As wele and [v.r. or] woo, nowe poure and nowe honour. c1449Pecock Repr. i. xviii. 107 In lengthe of tyme ful greet transmutacioun and chaunge is alwey maad in and aboute the circumstauncis of politik gouernauncis. c1450Mankind 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. 1570Foxe A. & M. (ed. 2) 169/1 Busy you to purchase that palace that euer shal endure in ioy without transmutation. 1851Longfellow 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.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. l. (xxxiii. in Bodl. MS. lf. 302 b/2), Þere may not be passinge transmutacion and chaunginge for þere is defaute of hete & of humoure. 1412–20Lydg. Chron. Troy i. 58 That a sodeyn transmutacioun Was made of amptis to forme of men anon. 1545T. Raynalde Byrth Mankynde 20 When that nature is dysposed to make a transmutation of any matter. 1594Plat Jewell-ho. iii. 65 Alterations, transmutations, & sometimes euen real transubstantiations of white wine into Claret. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. iv. 139 The supposed change of Worms into Flies is no real transmutation. 1725tr. 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. 1782Priestley Corrupt. Chr. II. vi. 7 It is too early..for..the transmutation of the bread and wine. 1879tr. De Quatrefages' Hum. Spec. 9 Here..is no transmutation of force similar to that in a machine worked by electricity or heat. 1896Duke of 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. Hence in Physics, the (actual) change of one element into another, esp. by irradiation or bombardment (as opposed to spontaneous decay). Cf. transformation 3 g.
1478Coventry Leet Bk. 422 To practise a true and a profitable conclusion in the Cunnying of transmutacion of metails. 1605Timme Quersit. iii. 183 Alchymie..ordereth and finisheth the transmutations of things. 1750Johnson Rambler No. 63 ⁋7 Not one appears to have desisted from the task of transmutation, from the conviction of its impossibility. 1812Sir H. Davy Chem. Philos. 11 The processes supposed to relate to the transmutation of metals, and the elixir of life. 1872Yeats Techn. Hist. Comm. 413 Alchemy, or the transmutation of metals, was virtually the parent of the modern science of chemistry. 1897Electrician 10 Dec. 214/1 Theoretically, if the modern doctrine as to the ultimate constitution of matter be accepted, the transmutation of the elements is a scientific possibility. The fierce atomic bombardments inside a Crookes tube or an electric furnace would seem the most probable of known conditions whereby the operation might be carried on. 1915K. Tornberg tr. Rasch's Electric Arc Phenomena viii. 184 Since the electrons are ultra-atomic..the electric arc provides a means for the splitting up of matter, which perhaps makes the synthesis or transmutation of chemical elements not entirely beyond possibility. 1926R. W. Lawson tr. Hevesy & Paneth's Man. Radioactivity xxi. 147 Up to the present we only know of one method that permits us to resolve the nuclei of the atoms artificially, and thus to achieve..the transmutation of the elements. 1969Bennison & Wright Geol. Hist. Brit. Isles i. 5 The rate of ‘decay’ or transmutation of radioactive minerals. 1974Physics Bull. Dec. 585/2 The process of transmutation (‘neutron burning’), as applied for several years now to radioactive waste, where certain isotopes are transmuted to isotopes with shorter half lives or even to stable ones.
b. Law. Transfer: usually transmutation of possession, transfer or change of ownership.
1488–9Act 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. 1602W. Fulbecke 1st Pt. Parallel 33 He held that in euery exchaunge there must be a mutuall transmutation of the possession. 1818Cruise Digest (ed. 2) II. 358, IV. 149. 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.
1553T. 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.
1594R. Ashley tr. Loys le Roy 68 b, The transmutation of soules from bodie to bodie.
†e. Her. = counterchanging. Cf. transmuted b. Obs.
1610J. 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.
1626Bacon 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. 1691Ray Creation ii. (1692) 91 The most that can be inferred from hence is a transmutation of Species. 1722Wollaston Relig. Nat. ix. 194 Transmutation of one species into another. 1859Page 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. 1863Lyell Antiq. Man i. 3 Recent modifications of the Lamarckian theory of progressive development and transmutation. 1879tr. 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.).
1674S. 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. 1743Emerson Fluxions i. 53 The 21st and all the following Forms relate to the Transmutation of Fluxions.
4. attrib., as transmutation doctrine, transmutation theory; transmutation glaze, trade name of a porcelain glaze having a changeable iridescent lustre.
1860Huxley 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. 1876tr. 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. 1904[see flambé a. 1].
Hence transmuˈtational a., of or pertaining to transmutation, esp. in sense 3 f.
1861Wilson & Geikie Mem. E. Forbes ii. 41, I can find no room, however, for transmutational ingenuity in writing of Edward Forbes. 1907Edin. Rev. Jan. 31 The crude transmutational theory. |