transmogrify
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of transmogrify
1650–60; earlier also transmigrify, transmography; apparently a pseudo-Latinism with transfigure or transmigrate + -ify
Explanation
You've seen something transmogrify, or transform completely, if you've ever watched the process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Use the verb transmogrify when a person or thing changes in a way that surprises you. A fairy tale frog transmogrifies into a prince in one well-known story, and a tomboy might be said to transmogrify when she puts on a frilly dress to be a flower girl in a wedding. The origin of transmogrify isn't clear, although one theory is that it was a mistake made long ago, when someone meant to say transmigrate, or "pass into another body after death."
Vocabulary lists containing transmogrify
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Grendel
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"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 19
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He would soon transmogrify these mostly dismal experiences into art.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
It’s likely in the middle of that process now, and could transmogrify itself into a star in as little as 200,000 years.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 24, 2023
Which leaves open the question of whether New York state prosecutors can transmogrify this conduct into a state crime.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 4, 2023
The concluding fire-and-brimstone fireworks of “Vingt Regards” transmogrify that turmoil of liberation into a transcendental visitation of bliss in the mystic beyond.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2020
Whoeber said Washington White wanted ter transmogrify hissef to a new planet?
From On a Torn-Away World Or, the Captives of the Great Earthquake by Roy Rockwood
Consequently, construction delays mounted, all transmogrified into change orders.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
The air around me was sour and stale, transmogrified by a mass of sweating bodies.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2024
Like other climate denial claims, the urban planning concept transmogrified in the depths of the internet.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 19, 2023
Hideously transmogrified, they struggle upstream past the banks of Pacific Northwest lakes, rivers and streams in an intricate and terrifying water ballet.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 27, 2022
Love had transmogrified him into a romantic idiot, and they drove him away back into the bedroom to wrangle with his girl over Captain Black.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
Adrien Merigeau’s fluidly surreal French dazzler “Genius Loci,” meanwhile, finds a solitary young woman’s restlessness about night in the city answered by the ceaseless transmogrifying of her surroundings, even herself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2021
This time the player is Detective Sebastian Castellanos a troubled detective who must search for his lost daughter in a weird, transmogrifying town.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 15, 2017
Guitar Hero reanimated the music video game genre when it launched in 2005, magically transmogrifying players into bona fide fret-shredding, tremolo-slapping Rock Gods.
From Time ● Aug. 23, 2016
“Thank you for speaking, and speaking from your heart,” Cruz said warmly before transmogrifying into his more lawyerly self.
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2016
Mrs. K. is an excellent hand at transmogrifying things, and in a large family such articles never come amiss.”
From Flora Lyndsay or, Passages in an Eventful Life by Susanna Moodie
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
