transformation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or an instance of transforming.
2. n. The state of being transformed.
3. n. A marked change, as in appearance or character, usually for the better.
4. n. Mathematics Replacement of the variables in an algebraic expression by their values in terms of another set of variables.
5. n. Mathematics A mapping of one space onto another or onto itself.
6. n. Linguistics A rule that systematically converts one syntactic form or form of sentence into another.
7. n. Linguistics A construction or sentence derived by such a rule; a transform.
8. n. Genetics The change undergone by an animal cell upon infection by a cancer-causing virus.
9. n. Genetics The alteration of a bacterial cell caused by the transfer of DNA from another bacterial cell, especially a pathogen.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In geometry, an operation which replaces a given figure by a second figure.
2. n. In electricity, change in the voltage of an alternating-current circuit by means of a transformer or other device.
3. n. The act or operation of transforming, or the state of being transformed; a change in form, appearance, nature, disposition, condition, or the like.
4. n. In biology, metamorphosis, in any sense; especially, the metamorphosis of those organisms which undergo obvious and great changes of form, as that of insects in passing from the larval to the imaginal state. Metamorphosis is the more frequent technical term. By some zoölogists transformation is restricted to the series of changes which every germ undergoes in completing the embryonic coudition, as those observed within the egg; while metamorphosis, according to the same authorities, designates the alterations which are undergone after exclusion from the egg, and which alter extensively the general form and mode of life of the individual. But this distinction of the synonymous words is seldom maintained. See metamorphosis, 2, 4, and compare transformism.
5. n. The change of one metal into another; transmutation of metals, according to the alchemists.
6. n. In mathematics, a passage in the imagination from one figure or expression to another different in form but equal in quantity. Thus, the volume of an oblique prism is ascertained by a transformation of it into a right prism of equal volume. Especially— The passage from one algebraical expression to another in other terms.
7. n. In pathology, a morbid change in a part, which consists in the conversion of its texture into one which is natural to some other part, as when soft parts are converted into cartilage or bone. Such transformation is generally a degenerative or retrograde metamorphosis.
8. n. In physiology, the change which takes place in the component parts of the blood during its passage from the minute arteries through the capillary system of vessels into the radicles of the venous system. There are three kinds of change, designated by the terms intussusception, apposition, and secretion.
9. n. In physics, change from solid to liquid or from liquid to gaseous state, or the converse. This change usually results merely from change of temperature or pressure, or both, without any alteration in the atomic constitution of the bodies concerned, as the change of water into steam.
10. n. The shape to which some person or thing has been transformed.
11. n. A transformation by means of a lineolinear equation connecting the old variable with the new one. Such a transformation is called homographic because it does not alter the value of an anharmonic ratio.
12. n. A transformation by means of polar triangles in spherical trigonometry.
13. n. Synonyms See transform, v. t.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of transforming or the state of being transformed.
2. n. A marked change in appearance or character, especially one for the better.
3. n. mathematics The replacement of the variables in an algebraic expression by their values in terms of another set of variables; a mapping of one space onto another or onto itself; a function that changes the position or direction of the axes of a coordinate system.
4. n. linguistics A rule that systematically converts one syntactic form into another; a sentence derived by such a rule.
5. n. genetics The alteration of a bacterial cell caused by the transfer of DNA from another, especially if pathogenic.
6. n. politics, South Africa Ideologically driven government policy - becoming more conformant with socialist and African nationalist groupthink.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of transforming, or the state of being transformed; change of form or condition.
2. n. (Biol.) Any change in an organism which alters its general character and mode of life, as in the development of the germ into the embryo, the egg into the animal, the larva into the insect (metamorphosis), etc.; also, the change which the histological units of a tissue are prone to undergo. See Metamorphosis.
3. n. (Physiol.) Change of one from of material into another, as in assimilation; metabolism; metamorphosis.
4. n. (Alchemy) The imagined possible or actual change of one metal into another; transmutation.
5. n. (Theol.) A change in disposition, heart, character, or the like; conversion.
6. n. (Math.) The change, as of an equation or quantity, into another form without altering the value.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (genetics) modification of a cell or bacterium by the uptake and incorporation of exogenous DNA
2. n. a rule describing the conversion of one syntactic structure into another related syntactic structure
3. n. a qualitative change
4. n. the act of changing in form or shape or appearance
5. n. (mathematics) a function that changes the position or direction of the axes of a coordinate system