shapeshift
Americanverb (used without object)
Other Word Forms
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:
Urista pointed to the region’s prehispanic nahual—a spiritual leader that is believed to shapeshift into animal counterparts—as a possible explanation for Mexico’s obsession.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026
With support from their collaborators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the researchers used a state-of-the-art transmission electron microscope to observe the nanoscale material shapeshift with atomic resolution in real time.
From Science Daily ● May 23, 2024
“Peregrine falcons can actually accelerate past their terminal velocity just by diving. They shapeshift their body profile to go faster than they should be if they’re just falling.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2022
Like most of the hallucinatory sights and transporting sounds in this feature-length anime, Inu-oh, as he comes to be known, tends to shapeshift in accordance with director Masaaki Yuasa’s whims.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2022
I asked Junior if he could shapeshift into him.
From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas
Said to have originated at Madame Wu’s in mid-century California, it’s since shapeshifted into mall cafés, suburban potlucks and prepackaged grab-and-go containers.
From Salon ● May 19, 2025
In the 1930s, White shapeshifted from intrepid crimefighter to savvy political leader, spending more than two decades at the head of the NAACP.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2022
It is to be hoped that Lady Loki is who she appears to be – a Loki variant who shapeshifted to female and has remained in this form indefinitely — instead of separate character.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2021
From there, the singer shapeshifted, across sounds and eras — she started with “Space Oddity” and “Fame” and a handful of other Bowie high notes — as often as Bowie had.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 16, 2016
“Mystique, shapeshifted to look like Leia with a lightsaber, versus Amethyst, shapeshifted to look like Leia with a blaster.”
From "The Season of Styx Malone" by Kekla Magoon
All this shapeshifting gives few clues about what Butler has been pursuing all these years, aside from power itself, which he has apparently wielded in the person of Gabbard.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2026
It’s Miles Davis’ centennial, and fellow musicians discuss how the shapeshifting innovator transformed music over and over again and became more than a jazz legend.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2026
“The Tao of Wu” looks forward to a shapeshifting future and calls for a defense of human creativity: “We must find and use a logic that’s not programmable.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
In a shapeshifting region where traditions are seldom archived on paper, the women "carry the living memory of Saharan societies through their songs, their stories, their hands that weave, shape, cook and educate."
From Barron's ● Feb. 10, 2026
Tyrion said impatiently "Blood- spells, curses, shapeshifting, those sorts of things?"
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
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.
