1. Plural of metaplasm; changes in the form of a word through the addition, omission, or transposition of letters or sounds.
Usage: linguistics; historical/archaic term
2. In biology, the transformation or change in the structure or composition of living tissue or cells.
Usage: biology; rare

Examples

• Linguists study metaplasms to understand how languages evolve over time.
• The metaplasms observed in Old English demonstrate the dynamic nature of phonetic systems.
• Historical metaplasms explain why some modern words differ significantly from their ancient roots.
• The addition of prefixes and suffixes represents one type of metaplasm in word formation.
• Medieval scholars documented various metaplasms in Latin texts.