polymorphicadj.

1816 G. S. Faber Origin Pagan Idolatry I. 49 Every animal was a symbol or form of the great polymorphic deity.

1885 Pall Mall Gaz. 17 Apr. 5/1 Other varieties of independent fancy, in which word-twisting scholars have chosen to discover but the one polymorphic and elusive sun-god.

1917 G. Saintsbury Hist. French Novel I. 119 One of Rabelais' favourite and most polymorphic expressions.

1987 J. Diski Rainforest viii. 87 The polymorphic eye of the forest took in the small disturbance within Mo.

2000 19th-Cent. Lit. 55 325 The polymorphic eroticism of Henry's gift is made conspicuous.

1859 C. Darwin Origin of Species ii. 46 Genera which have been called ‘protean’ or ‘polymorphic’, in which the species present an inordinate amount of variation.

1881 Gardeners' Chron. 16 621 Polymorphic states of a Phoma.

1898 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. V. 416 The shape of the nucleus is constantly undergoing variation, for which reason it is generally described as polymorphic.

1925 A. D. Imms Gen. Textbk. Entomol. iii. 257 Termites live together in large communities composed of polymorphic individuals.

1928 New Phytologist 27 175 One genus..affords the clearest example of the polymorphic condition, the ovary being obviously not monomerous, but dimerous.

1940 E. B. Ford in J. S. Huxley New Systematics 503 Though polymorphic forms are to be distinguished from geographical variation, they may be a function of it.

1974 Nature 20 Dec. 700 The Arctic skua is a polymorphic seabird with pale, intermediate and dark plumaged phenotypes.

1987 A. M. Colman Facts, Fallacies & Frauds in Psychol. iii. 56 An example of a polymorphic gene is the one that determines a person's ABO blood type. It exists in three alternative forms, symbolized by A, B, and O.

1992 Nature Canada Fall 12/2 Jellyfish are polymorphic, i.e. they exist in more than one life form.

2000 C. Tudge Variety of Life ii. vii. 226 Some species of periwinkle are extraordinarily polymorphic: they vary enormously not only in colour but in the size and shape of their shells.

1891 Amer. Naturalist 25 576 The various forms of a polymorphic body belong to the first class.

1924 A. E. Hill in H. S. Taylor Treat. Physical Chem. I. ix. 380 At high pressures there exist several polymorphic forms of ice, differing from the common variety in density, heat of formation, crystalline structure and other physical properties.

1985 Nature 7 Mar. 12/1 Water has at least nine crystalline polymorphic varieties.

1999 I. Kostov & R. I. Kostov Crystal Habits Minerals vi. 201 The three polymorphic modifications of Al₂SiO₅ crystallize in different space groups.

1906 Lancet 7 Apr. 951/2 They [sc. tabes and general paralysis] are, in my opinion, merely different aspects of the same polymorphic disease.

1941 H. Blum Photodynamic Action Dis. caused by Light 242 Polymorphic light eruptions may be produced by sunburn radiation.

1967 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 19 Aug. 385/2 His dermatitis..was consistent with polymorphic photodermatitis of the chronic eczematous type.

1985 W. Frain-Bell Cutaneous Photobiol. ii. 24 The idiopathic photodermatoses consist of polymorphic light eruption, actinic prurigo, hydroa vacciniforme, and solar urticaria.

2004 Amer. Jrnl. Obstetr. & Gynecol. 191 515/1 There is no test that reliably indicates who will develop this polymorphic disease [sc. preeclampsia].

a1975 C. Strachey in Higher-Order & Symbolic Computation (2000) 13 35 We also expect the compiling system to..interpret correctly ambiguous symbols (such as +) which mean different things according to the types of their operands. We call ambiguous operators of this sort polymorphic as they have several forms depending on their arguments.

1977 J. H. Wiliams & D. A. Fisher Design & Implementation Programming Lang. 131 Several kinds of type relationships are considered: mixed type operations, generic operations, polymorphic operations [etc.].

1992 Pixel Mar. 30/1 Vroutines..are designed to be polymorphic, that is, they function on bit, byte, short, integer, float, and complex data types.

2001 Jrnl. Manuf. Syst. (Nexis) 19 401 Virtual or polymorphic functions may be used to make this query independent of the changes in the MP objects for the facility or the type of feature.

1992 Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.) (Nexis) b6 Dvorak discusses three new styles of virus: stealth, polymorphic, and multipartite.

2000 ‘Dr. K.’ Compl. Hacker's Handbk. x. 147 By using these packages and including the code into viruses they are writing, novice writers can give even very simple viruses polymorphic capability, enabling them to escape detection.