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1. Change of form, or structure;
transformation.

2. (Biol.) A change in the form or
function of a living organism, by a natural process of growth or
development; as, the metamorphosis of the yolk into the
embryo, of a tadpole into a frog, or of a bud into a blossom.
Especially, that form of sexual reproduction in which an embryo
undergoes a series of marked changes of external form, as the
chrysalis stage, pupa stage, etc., in insects. In these intermediate
stages sexual reproduction is usually impossible, but they ultimately
pass into final and sexually developed forms, from the union of which
organisms are produced which pass through the same cycle of changes.
See Transformation.

3. (Physiol.) The change of material
of one kind into another through the agency of the living organism;
metabolism.

Vegetable metamorphosis (Bot.), the
doctrine that flowers are homologous with leaf buds, and that the
floral organs are transformed leaves.


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