transubstantiate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to change from one substance into another; transmute.
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Theology. to change (the bread and wine) into the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.
verb
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(intr) RC theol (of the Eucharistic bread and wine) to undergo transubstantiation
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(tr) to change (one substance) into another; transmute
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of transubstantiate
1400–50; v. use of late Middle English transsubstanciate (adj.) transubstantiated < Medieval Latin trānssubstantiātus, past participle of trānssubstantiāre. See trans-, substance, -ate 1
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:
But lower courts cannot transubstantiate dissents into binding precedent through sheer force of repetition.
From Slate ● Sep. 15, 2020
But maybe, Shin would have us believe, there’s a way to get past the limitations of our perspectives, to subvert our own framing devices via art’s ability to estrange and transubstantiate.
From New York Times ● Aug. 27, 2020
It is now an idea that is asked to support and transubstantiate the weight of our time.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 5, 2019
In Capri Sun commercials, kids transubstantiate into especially viscous puddles of Capri Sun, in search of more Capri Sun.
From The Verge ● Aug. 23, 2017
Commonplace gains nothing by being translated into rhyme, for it is something which no hocus-pocus can transubstantiate with the real presence of living thought.
From The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell by Lowell, James Russell
This change in Turner’s style may have had something to do with the cataracts he developed after habitually staring into the sun, but he transubstantiated this physical limitation into paintings that depicted eternity.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2022
But his concerns are the same as artists 500 years gone — how bodies can be transubstantiated into precious metal, and take on new meaning and value.
From New York Times ● Jan. 16, 2020
And then there was Evie, the most beloved, who had transubstantiated into a postcard from Reno.
From The New Yorker ● May 29, 2017
Peggy and Joan, by contrast, began as near-cartoons—the mousy naïf and the man-killer—and transubstantiated into people, lending flesh-and-blood immediacy to Mad Men’s rendering of women in the ’60s office jungle.
From Slate ● May 15, 2015
Central among the seven stood the sacrament of the Mass, in which bread and wine were transubstantiated into the divine body and blood of our Lord.
From The Unity of Civilization by Various
Catholicism also makes a ceremony of transubstantiating flesh into a sacrament to feed the soul.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2024
Instead, she presents as an angelic self-portrait, someone who has made a life of transubstantiating pain into joy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2020
No doubt the appearance in “Utopia Avenue” of vengeful transubstantiating Japanese demons and some conveniently timed Horologist psychosedation will excite some of his fans.
From New York Times ● Jul. 10, 2020
Resurrecting Thomas Cromwell may have won her the Booker, twice, but Beyond Black is propelled by an awareness of text as a kind of transubstantiating material, a vehicle for bringing back the dead.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 22, 2020
They claimed the ability of transubstantiating sin into duty, and duty into sin, that they might justify themselves in adopting any means to obtain an end.
From Monks, Popes, and their Political Intrigues by Alberger, John
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.
