Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having or exhibiting many forms; characterized by polymorphism; not isomorphous or monomorphous.
- Specifically, in zoology: Undergoing a series of marked changes during development, as most insects.
- Varying much in appearance, form, or structure in the same species or group.
- In botany, same as 2 .
- In music, noting a contrapuntal composition, as a canon or a fugue, in which the themes are or may be treated in various ways, as by augmentation, diminution, inversion, etc. Also polymorphic.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having, or assuming, a variety of forms, characters, or styles; as, a polymorphous author.
- adj. biology Having, or occurring in, several distinct forms; -- opposed to monomorphic.
- adj. chemistry Crystallizing in two or more different forms; polymorphic
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having, or assuming, a variety of forms, characters, or styles.
- adj. (Biol.) Having, or occurring in, several distinct forms; -- opposed to
monomorphic .
WordNet 3.0
- adj. relating to the crystallization of a compound in two or more different forms
- adj. having or occurring in several distinct forms
- adj. relating to the occurrence of more than one kind of individual (independent of sexual differences) in an interbreeding population
Etymologies
- From New Latin polymorphus, from Ancient Greek πολύμορφος ("multiform, manifold"), from πολύς (polus, "many, much") + μορφή ("form, shape"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“In Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man he promised that the overcoming of capitalism and its false consciousness will result in a society where the greatest satisfactions are sexual, of a sort that the bourgeois moralist Freud called polymorphous and infantile.”
“In A Home at the End of the World 1990 he followed three very different misfits from childhood to maturity, from Cleveland to New York City and then to the broken-down upstate farmhouse where they define themselves, perilously and poignantly, as a kind of polymorphous family.”
The Huffington Post: Alan Hollinghurst On Michael Cunningham: The New York Review Of Books
“At least half of those genes are polymorphous, meaning that "they have a great potential of variation among themselves," Mr MacLeod says.”
“polymorphous" [40] being in which all celestial powers manifested themselves in turn; a _pantheos_ who wore the crown of rays and the lunar crescent at the same time, and whose various emblems expressed an infinite multiplicity of functions.”
“The score is comparably ambitious and polymorphous, folding in a panoply of styles, from Bach to boogie-woogie, and finally fading away until, during the recitation of Curie's words, the instruments fall silent.”
The Washington Post: Review: Great Noise Ensemble at the National Gallery of Art
“The movie is more about the unapologetic display of polymorphous sexuality than whatever the plot amounts to, but any reel dropped into the middle of the latest Jennifer Aniston flick might cause a riot.”
“Human sexuality, especially male sexuality, is polymorphous, or utterly wild (far more so than animal sexuality).”
“Commercial rock, a polymorphous genre that ruled popular music for decades, has spent this one sniveling in the corner, searching for reinvention.”
“Spero's guns, bombs and helicopters are polymorphous and perverse: male and female by turns.”
“But the narrative arc of the Occupy crackdowns on both journalists and protesters reflects a much bigger back story: The political establishment understands the power of the press to foment rebellion, but it does not understand that the media are constantly adapting and growing more polymorphous, and thus harder to crush.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘polymorphous’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Greek to me
Gordian knot, Proteus, sisyphean, eudemonia, glossolalia, hemorrhage, hamadryad, aphotic, tautogeneity, anthropomorphism, polygamy, polygyny and 37 more...
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Body bio- baby!
hemorrhage, prognosis, blowsabella, somatotype, ectomorphic, endomorphic, mesomorphic, labia minora, labia majora, entopic, ectopic, ectopic pregnancy and 65 more...
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poly-
many, much
polyandry, polychrome, polychromatic, polyphagia, polydactyly, polymorphous, polymorphocellular
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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bertilak's Words
antidisestablishm..., feldercarb, wainscoting, eleemosynary, oxymoron, fuliginous, libration, lammergeier, saxifrage, ichor, lambent, smaragdine and 414 more...
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ginnylev's Words
neuroplasticity, repudiate, scintilla, ruminate, tautology, ombudsman, exigent, filibuster, grace, ambidextrous, amends, disclosure and 623 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
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tongue tippers
the ones that are just on the tip of the tongue, the ones that should be made celebrated members of my vocabulary, thank you
natant, prurient, antipodal, puerile, equipoise, choler, sui generis, exemplary, lodestar, rhetoric, bon mot, adjudicate and 91 more...
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BlueBeetle's Words
prestidigitation, lubricious, agnuopia, phobologophobia, mellifluous, antediluvian, theodolite, vulpine, tmesis, nevertheless, brobdingnagian, pie and 55 more...
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word set7
brownie wings, apostasy, agents provocateurs, de rigueur, epiphenomenonal, gregorian calendar, morganatic, geomagnetic storm, syncopated, oppositionist, civil twilight, topologically and 75 more...
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2012-01-24
Tweets
Looking for tweets for polymorphous.
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