1576 G. Gascoigne Delicate Diet (1792) 12 For was not Noah..through this beastly vice, so Metamorphosed, that he lay in his Tent uncovered.

1598 R. Barret Theorike & Pract. Mod. Warres i. 2 Long peace, and neglect of Martiall discipline hath metamorphosed manly mindes.

1621 M. Wroth Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania 12 I was at that instant metamorphosed into miserie it selfe.

1694 R. Franck Northern Mem. 19 The Church of Rome..where Mattins are metamorphosed into Masquins, Collects translated into Collations [etc.].

1741 W. Oldys et al. Betterton's Hist. Eng. Stage vi. 93 They formed a select Company, and Metamorphosing the Tennis-Court..opened their new Theatre.

1777 E. Burke Corr. (1844) II. 152 Never were a people so metamorphosed. The plain farmer and even the plain quaker is become a soldier.

1819 W. Irving Rip Van Winkle in Sketch Bk. i. 82 He recognised on the sign,..the ruby face of King George..but even this was singularly metamorphosed.

1866 H. P. Liddon Bampton Lect. (1875) vi. 344 The regenerate man has been metamorphosed, his moral being is reconstructed.

1876 ‘G. Eliot’ Daniel Deronda I. i. viii. 46 This patient..from being the brightest..spirit in the household, was metamorphosed into an irresponsive dull-eyed creature.

1954 C. Beaton Glass of Fashion viii. 148 Somehow the indomitable spirit sublimated the old wastepaper basket of black satin that she wore on her head and metamorphosed the cotton rose on her shoulder into a thing of beauty.

1992 B. Unsworth Sacred Hunger xxxix. 434 Metamorphosed into a superior servant, in a suit of good cloth and paste buckles to his shoes.., he entertained his fellow-domestics with stories of the sea.

1904 J. London Sea-wolf iii. 28 The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body bunched together as for a spring, and his face became as an infuriated beast's.

1987 C. Achebe Anthills of Savannah i. 12 On the very next day after the politicians were overthrown Okong metamorphosed into a brilliant analyst of their many excesses.

1994 Life June 19/1 His words describe anger metamorphosing into acid ambition.

1658 J. Robinson Endoxa iii. 130 Frogs..are..metamorphosed into another shape..from tailed to bobbed.

1664 H. Power Exper. Philos. i. 27 When she was metamorphos'd into a Locust, I could discern no Mouth in the Microscope.

1665 T. Herbert Some Years Trav. (new ed.) 193 The Worm is metamorphosed into a Butter-fly.

1844 W. B. Carpenter in Todd's Cycl. Anat. & Physiol. III. 742/2 The wonderful processes of chemical and vital transformation, which take place during the period of incubation [of an egg], the albumen which it contained at first is metamorphosed into bone, cartilage, nerve,..feathers, &c., &c.

1851 R. Owen in Edinb. New Philos. Jrnl. 50 271 Before the individual has finally metamorphosed itself into the winged male or winged oviparous female.

1929 Jrnl. Heredity 20 137/1 They found the stamens metamorphosed either wholly or partly into carpels.

1995 Economist 25 Nov. 137/2 Early recapitulationists believed..that a human embryo began as a fish-like one, metamorphosed into an amphibian-like one, and then turned into a reptilian one, before ultimately becoming mammalian.

1858 A. Geikie Story of Boulder xii. 246 A portion of the shale..has become in consequence highly metamorphosed.

1874 Q. Jrnl. Geol. Soc. 30 291 We find great intrusive masses of granite, passing by insensible gradations into syenite-granite and felsite; and these, in rising through the surrounding strata, violently disturb and greatly metamorphose them.

1905 T. C. Chamberlin & R. D. Salisbury Geol. I. i. 17 In some places the sedimentary beds have been metamorphosed into crystalline rocks by heat and pressure.

1978 M. Lambert Fossils 14 (caption) Pressure and heat from molten rock alter, or metamorphose, neighbouring rocks.

1989 Jrnl. Petrol. 30 125 Garnet zone metapelites from the southwest Tauern Window in the Eastern Alps..were metamorphosed at nearly the same temperatures..as the garnet zone metapelites from the Mahmutlar Nappe.