metastasis
Americannoun
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Pathology.
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the transference of disease-producing organisms or of malignant or cancerous cells to other parts of the body by way of the blood or lymphatic vessels or membranous surfaces.
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the condition produced by this.
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Rhetoric. a rapid transition, as from one subject to another.
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Physics. a change in position or orbit of an elementary particle.
noun
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pathol the spreading of a disease, esp cancer cells, from one part of the body to another
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a transformation or change, as in rhetoric, from one point to another
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a rare word for metabolism
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of metastasis
First recorded in 1580–90, metastasis is from the Greek word metástasis “a changing”; see meta-, stasis
Explanation
When a doctor uses the word metastasis, it's never good news. It means an illness has spread to new parts of the body. The noun metastasis is a medical term that's most often used to describe a spreading cancer. If a patient's lung cancer spreads to his heart or to his lymph nodes, that is metastasis. It's a Greek word meaning "transference or change." In Latin, the word metastasis was at one time used to mean "a sudden transition in subjects," but ever since the 1660s, the English use has been almost entirely medical.
Vocabulary lists containing metastasis
Cell Biology - Middle School
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Cell Biology - High School
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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.
Chronically high IL-6 levels have also been linked to recurrence and metastasis of multiple types of cancer.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 15, 2026
"This could suggest that, to develop treatments for pancreatic cancer metastasis, the gene may not need to be entirely shut down to have a positive effect," says Feinberg.
From Science Daily • Apr. 7, 2026
"Since then, we've discovered its mechanism of action in breast cancer growth, metastasis and immune exhaustion and developed an antibody to block SFRP2."
From Science Daily • Jan. 22, 2026
Additional experiments showed that the compounds reduced cancer cell migration, an important finding because metastasis is a major cause of death in ovarian cancer.
From Science Daily • Dec. 15, 2025
Dupuytren failed to produce metastasis by injections of pus into the veins of dogs; these results were confirmed by Boyer, who only obtained metastasis when he used ichorous pus in his experiments.
From A System of Practical Medicine by American Authors, Vol. I Volume 1: Pathology and General Diseases by Various
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.
