Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Readily taking on varied shapes, forms, or meanings.
- adj. Exhibiting considerable variety or diversity: "He loved to show off his protean talent” ( William A. Henry III).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to Proteus, a sea-god of classical mythology, who could change his shape at will; hence, readily assuming different shapes; exceedingly variable.
- [lowercase] In zoöl, changeable in form; executing movements involving shifting of shape, as an animalcule; amœbiform or amœboid; amœban; of or pertaining to a proteus-animalcule. Also proteiform.
- n. An actor who plays a number of parts in one piece.
- n. A salamander of the family Proteidæ; a proteid.
- In the geology of New York, a name applied by the geologists of the first State Survey to the rocks now termed the Clinton beds of the Silurian system: in allusion to the variable character of the component stratigraphic elements.
Wiktionary
- adj. Exceedingly variable; readily assuming different shapes or forms.
- adj. Of or pertaining to Proteus; characteristic of Proteus.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to Proteus; characteristic of Proteus.
- adj. Exceedingly variable; readily assuming different shapes or forms.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. taking on different forms
Etymologies
- From Proteus.
Examples
“The borders of this new world will remain protean, subject to change over time.”
“Inordinately protean" is really just a way of saying that a book like Moby-Dick is always worth reading and re-reading, that readers 'experiences of the novel are always going to be productively various.”
“It then simply resolves itself into one of those exceptional instances of what is called a protean form.”
“The president is sometimes described as "protean," after Proteus, the powerful Greek mythological sea figure who could change into any shape, including wild beasts.”
“And that's the kind of protean, brand-spanking-new-for-now category I'd like to live my reading and writing life in.”
“There is one point connected with individual differences, which seems to me extremely perplexing: I refer to those genera which have sometimes been called "protean" or "polymorphic," in which the species present an inordinate amount of variation; and hardly two naturalists can agree which forms to rank as species and which as varieties.”
“There is one point connected with individual differences, which seems to me extremely perplexing: I refer to those genera which have sometimes been called 'protean' or 'polymorphic,' in which the species present an inordinate amount of variation; and hardly two naturalists can agree which forms to rank as species and which as varieties.”
“The experiments also showed that MDA19 had "protean" effects, so-called after the shape-shifting Greek sea god Proteus-under different conditions, it could either block or activate the cannabinoid receptors.”
“Could there be some other stage of development in which we express ourselves through a kind of protean self in numerous realities with different levels of faith or suspension of disbelief appropriate to each of them?”
“The engineered sheet is effectively a shape-shifting robot - or, looked at another way, a kind of protean 'programmable matter'.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘protean’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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Hence
Words with definitions that have a "hence" in them.
hanger, Deet, tripe, spindlelegs, fiddle, store, pluck, snap, villain, link, comedy, particular and 373 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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[Uni][verse]
to be used.
windfall, alkahest, tektite, cislunar, conatus, pansophy, universe, macrocosm, perfect storm, star-scattered, cynosure, stellate and 9 more...
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vocabulous
autarkic, ineluctable, productivist, teleology, imperious, Balkanization, phytosanitary, inedia, algesia, protean, tenebrous, libretto and 10 more...
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Random Words! Add Your Own! :D
Randomness time! Add your own words. ❤
Love, bucket, brigade, actuary, canal, canasta, why is the door open, coconut, stochastic, haphazard, accidental, chance and 38 more...
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Kathy C's List
My favorite words
golconda, au fait, purlicue, tautonym, cunctatory, gynecomastia, vesta, imprimatur, efflux, antediluvian, protean, phlegmatic and 24 more...
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bestiary
agave, incunable, echt, wissenschaft, friscalating, obsolescence, clavier, yajna, ecstatic, casual, protean, hum and 41 more...
bilby "Notions of sexually satisfying intercourse are remarkably protean, as the extraordinary spectrum of human paraphilias demonstrates, but Djerassi cannot see that his nominal subject includes the reasons why he, and men like him, consider the intravaginal ejaculation is the only satisfactory kind."
- 'Chemistry and fertility: review of Carl Djerassi', Germaine Greer in Spectator, 1980. Apr 14, 2008