Transmuters - more than meets the eye

I used the word transmuted in my last post. I probably could have used the word transformed, but transmuted seemed a little more accurate in describing a change from one spelling to another then back again. Transmute comes from the Latin word transmutare through the Middle English transmuten. Transmutare comes from the Latin words trans (meaning over or across) and mutare (meaning to change). Mutare is the root for our word mutate. Because transmutation is more commonly used than transmute, the verb form is sometimes wrongly backformed from transmutation to transmutate, but the word is transmute.

Transmute means to change from one form to another. My dictionary says from one form, species, nature, substance, or condition to another. How’s that different from transform? Tranform is more about outward appearance than form or substance or species. (Sherlock Holmes was “transformed” into various characters, only to be returned to himself later.) There is in transmute that sense of mutation of form that transform doesn’t have. The Transformers could be said to transmute as much as transform, although their change was temporary, as was Sherlock’s.

Sometimes a transformation can be a metamorphosis, and metamorphoses are always transformations. Metamorphosis comes originally from two Greek words (meta, meaning over, and morphe, meaning form). It refers to a complete physical change from one form to another (again, the dictionary uses a list: “form, shape, structure, or substance”). Metamorphoses are more and sudden than transmutations, and have less of a randomness to them. They are more complete and permanent than transformations. (Franz Kafka’s character in “The Metamorphosis” wakes up and is surprised to find himself a cockroach. We never read that he returns to be a person.)

Transmogrified, on the other hand, is more sinister. We know that trans means over or across. What is mogrify? There is no such word as mogrify. In fact, there is no such word as transmogrify, at least in an etymological sense. According to my dictionary, transmogrify is “a humorous pseudo-Latin formation”. Etymologists aren’t reknowned for their sense of humor. The web site etymonline.com says that it comes from 1656 and is a perversion of transmigure, from transmigrate influenced by modify. So maybe it should be transmodifigried, not transmogrified. At any rate it has come to mean a change completely, especially in a grotesque or strange manner (think trans-ogre-fy.) So when Dr. Bruce Banner changes into the incredible Hulk he is transmogrifying. He may also be transmuting, and transforming, but the best word is transmogrify. Now you know.