the act or an instance of changing; alteration
There is nothing exempt from the peril of mutation — Sir Walter Raleigh
an alteration, esp a significant and fundamental one
a relatively permanent change in an organism's hereditary material
an individual or strain differing from others of its type and resulting from such a change
in linguistics, a sound-change resulting from the phonetic or linguistic environment, e.g. umlaut in Germanic languages or the change of the initial consonant of a Celtic word under the influence of a preceding sound
mutational adj
mutationally adv
[Middle English mutacioun via French from Latin mutation-, mutatio, from mutatus, past part. of mutare to change]