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Webster 1913 Edition


Metastasis

Me-tas′ta-sis

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Metastases
(#)
.
[L., transition, fr. Gr. [GREEK], fr. [GREEK] to place in another way; [GREEK] after + [GREEK] to place.]
1.
(Theol.)
A spiritual change, as during baptism.
2.
(Med.)
A change in the location of a disease, as from one part to another.
Dunglison.
4.
(Physiol.)
The act or process by which matter is taken up by cells or tissues and is transformed into other matter; in plants, the act or process by which are produced all of those chemical changes in the constituents of the plant which are not accompanied by a production of organic matter; metabolism.

Webster 1828 Edition


Metastasis

METAS'TASIS

,
Noun.
[Gr. mutation; over, and to place.] A translation or removal of a disease form one part to another, or such an alteration as is succeeded by a solution.

Definition 2024


metastasis

metastasis

See also: metástasis

English

Noun

metastasis (plural metastases)

  1. (medicine) The transference of a bodily function or disease to another part of the body, specifically the development of a secondary area of disease remote from the original site, as with some cancers.
    • 1963: Thomas Pynchon, V.
      Stayed in her own house, searched her body each morning and examined her conscience each night for progressive symptoms of the metastasis she feared was in her.
  2. (figuratively) The spread of a harmful event to another location, like the metastasis of a cancer.
  3. (rhetoric) Denying adversaries' arguments and turning the arguments back on them.

Derived terms

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