Meaning of metaphasis | Babel Free

Definitions

The accidental transposition of part of the sounds of two words in a phrase; the production of spoonerisms.

uncountable

Examples

“'Oxford's great metaphasiarch', as Punch once called him, was seldom guilty of metaphasis, or the transposition of sounds. What he transposed was ideas.”

“Dr. Ashok suffered from a mild form of metaphasis. He made Spoonerisms.”

“But couldn’t it be that there is a distinction to be made between ‘metaphasis’ and ‘metathesis’? The OED defines the latter as ‘the interchange of position between sounds or letters in a word’ (my italics). An example would be Old English bridd becoming modern bird. This leaves ‘metaphasis’ free to describe what Spooner did: transpose sounds between different words, like his classic ‘our queer Dean’.”

“The technical term for this transposition is metaphasis.”

“The sister chromatid exchange (SCE) assay measures the drug-induced metaphasis SCE.”

“The reason is that homologous pairing takes place before metaphasis, during pachytene.”

“The nuclei at the 9.55 stage show some indication of change, but none of them have reached the metaphasis of the process of division, while at 11.25 the metaphasis was finished and the protoplasm already aggregated round the daughter nuclei.”

“There is abrupt lateral bending of the medial cortex wall of the proximal tibial metaphasis and, in the older child, deformity and retarded development of the ipsilateral epiphyseal plateau68”

“Next, a 1 cm longitudinal incision is created dorsally over the proximal shaft and metaphasis of the proximal phalanx.”

“The evidence of previous fractures is seen in the metaphasis as masses of calcified matrix showing an abnormal architecture and surrounded by an excess of bone.”

CEFR level