Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To transform (an image) by computer.
  • intransitive verb To be transformed.
  • noun An allomorph.
  • noun One of various distinct forms of a species (such as color variant) or of an organism during different parts of its life cycle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An abbreviation of morphology, morphological, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Linguistics) A sequence of phonemes, often a word fragment, which constitutes the minimum unit of meaning or syntax within a given word. A morph may be one of several variants of a morpheme, depending for its individal form on the context in which it occurs. Thus the morphs -s and -es are variants of the morpheme by which the plural form of an English noun is expressed.
  • verb To transform smoothly in imperceptible steps from one image to another, on a computer screen.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun linguistics A physical form representing some morpheme in language. It is a recurrent distinctive sound or sequence sounds.
  • noun linguistics An allomorph: one of a set of realizations that a morpheme can have in different contexts.
  • noun biology Local variety of a species, distinguishable from other populations of the species by morphology or behaviour.
  • noun A computer-generated gradual change from one image to another.
  • verb colloquial, transitive, intransitive To change shape, from one form to another, through computer animation.
  • verb colloquial To undergo dramatic change in a seamless and barely noticeable fashion.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cause to change shape in a computer animation
  • verb change shape as via computer animation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Shortening of metamorphose.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From morpheme.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Greek morphē, form, shape.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Back-formation from morpheme.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Shortening of metamorphose: to change in shape or form.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word morph.

Examples

  • The discussion of the “issues” in such an instance seems to me to morph from a discussion of what is possibly true and what is possibly not true (and why), to a discussion meant to win the “War of the Diets,” with the “Team Low-Carb” vs. the “Team Low-Fat.”

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Are Carbs Worse than Fat? 2010

  • Q: We have to be careful here, because the identity of the gypsy morph is a key mystery in the novel, but can you describe generally what this creature is and what it represents?

    An interview with Terry Brooks about his new series that begins with Armageddon's Children 2010

  • Any occupation requiring pattern-matching and the ability to find obscure connections will quickly morph from the domain of experts to that of ordinary people whose intelligence has been augmented by cheap digital tools.

    Get Smarter 2009

  • Any occupation requiring pattern-matching and the ability to find obscure connections will quickly morph from the domain of experts to that of ordinary people whose intelligence has been augmented by cheap digital tools.

    Get Smarter 2009

  • Due to the way in which the documentary fast-forwarded, however, his solo incarnation seemed to morph from a sharp 30-something to a scary and quite preposterous-looking 40-something in the blink of an eye.

    I am not Paul Weller « We Don't Count Your Own Visits To Your Blog 2008

  • In other words, the rate at which words tend to morph is in inverse proportion to how often they're used.

    Archive 2007-10-01 2007

  • "DeMarcus allows your defense to morph from a 3-4 to a 4-3 to a 2-5 front," says TV and radio analyst Solomon Wilcost.

    Cowboys out to make the 'D' big in Dallas once again 2007

  • DeMarcus allows your defense to morph from a 3-4 to a 4-3 to a 2-5 front.

    Cowboys out to make the 'D' big in Dallas once again 2007

  • Saying a morph of a morph is considered more attractive than just the morph may well be true and provable ... but it says nothing about how attractive real Eurasians are.

    SeeLight: 2006

  • Saying a morph of a morph is considered more attractive than just the morph may well be true and provable ... but it says nothing about how attractive real Eurasians are.

    More Bullshit About Hapas 2006

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Then an Army microbiologist from Fort Detrick made an unexpected discovery. Using an old-fashioned microbiological technique, he spread out some attack spores on a bed of nutrient and let each form its own colony. All the colonies looked identical except one, which, to his trained eye, seemed very slightly different. Different-looking colonies are called morphotypes or just “morphs.�?

    The New York Times, A Trained Eye Finally Solved the Anthrax Puzzle, by Nicholas Wade, August 20, 2008

    August 21, 2008