What is "metathesis"

Metathesis \Me*tath"e*sis\, n.; pl. Metatheses. [L., fr. Gr. meta`qesis, fr. metatiqe`nai to place differently, to transpose; meta` beyond, over + tiqe`nai to place, set. See Thesis.]

1. (Gram.) Transposition, as of the letters or syllables of a word; as, pistris for pristis; meagre for meager.

2. (Med.) A mere change in place of a morbid substance, without removal from the body.

3. (Chem.) The act, process, or result of exchange, substitution, or replacement of atoms and radicals; thus, by metathesis an acid gives up all or part of its hydrogen, takes on an equivalent amount of a metal or base, and forms a salt.

1570s, "transposition of letters in a word;" c.1600, "rhetorical transposition of words," from Late Latin metathesis, from Greek metathesis "change of position, transposition, change of opinion," from stem of metatithenai "to transpose," from meta- "to change" (see meta-) + tithenai "to place, set" (see theme). Plural is metatheses. Related: Metathetic.

n. 1 (context prosody English) the transposition of letters, syllables or sounds within a word, such as in ''ask'' as /æks/ 2 (context inorganic chemistry English) the double decomposition of inorganic salts 3 (context organic chemistry English) the breaking and reforming of double bonds in olefins in which substituent groups are swapped

1. n. a linguistic process of transposition of sounds or syllables within a word or words within a sentence

2. a chemical reaction between two compounds in which parts of each are interchanged to form two new compounds (AB+CD=AD+CB) [syn: double decomposition, double decomposition reaction]

3. [also: metatheses (pl)]

Metathesis (; from Greek μετάθεσις, from μετατίθημι "I put in a different order"; Latin: trānspositiō) is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:

• foliage > **foilage
• cavalry > **calvary

Metathesis may also involve switching non-contiguous sounds, known as nonadjacent metathesis, long-distance metathesis, or hyperthesis:

• Latin parabola > Spanish palabra 'word'
• Latin miraculum > Spanish milagro 'miracle'
• Latin periculum > Spanish peligro 'danger, peril'
• Latin crocodilus > Italian coccodrillo 'crocodile'

Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some use it as a regular part of their grammar, such as in Hebrew and the Fur language. The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in the English language, as well.

The original form before metathesis may be deduced from older forms of words in the language's lexicon, or, if no forms are preserved, from phonological reconstruction. In some cases, including English "ask" (see below), it is not possible to settle with certainty on the original version.

Metathesis (from the Greek μετάθεσις "transposition") may refer to:

• Metathesis (linguistics), in phonology, a sound change that alters the order of phonemes in a word
  • Quantitative metathesis, a situation in which two vowel sounds follow directly one after the other and a transposition of vowel length takes place
• Metathesis reaction, in chemistry, a bimolecular process involving the exchange of bonds between the two reacting chemical species
  • Olefin metathesis, an organic reaction which involves redistribution of olefinic (alkene) bonds
  • Alkane metathesis, a chemical reaction in which alkanes are rearranged to give longer or shorter alkane products
  • Alkyne metathesis, an organic reaction involving the redistribution of alkyne chemical bonds