metathesis

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin metathesis (“transposition”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Ancient Greek μετάθεσις (metáthesis, “change of position, transposition”),^[3][7][2] which is formed from μετα- (meta-) and θέσις (thésis, “a placing”),^[2][8] after μετατίθημι (metatíthēmi, “to transpose, change”),^[2][3][9] itself from μετά (metá), implying change,^[3][8] and τίθημι (títhēmi, “to place, set”).^[3][7][9] Etymonline traces the Greek verb to a reduplicated form of the PIE root Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to set, put”).^[3] The revised OED allows that the English word may come from the Latin or directly from the Greek, and notes that the Latin word is recorded from the 3rd century in the linguistic sense; it compares French métathèse, recorded from 1587.^[2] The word is related to thesis and theme.^[7][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The transposition of sounds or letters in a word: 1577, in Henry Peacham's Garden of Eloquence,^[2] the same year that the Concise Barnhart gives;^[4] Etymonline dates this grammatical sense to the 1570s.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives an earlier first use, about 1538.^[10] The full Barnhart instead puts the transposition of words first (1608) and that of letters later (1660).^[9]

Semantic evolution

In early use the word could also mean the transposition of whole words in rhetoric, which Etymonline dates to about 1600;^[3][11] the linguistic sense of sounds and letters is the one that survives.^[2][11] In 17th- and 18th-century medicine it meant the shifting of a disease or of diseased matter within the body, either as a synonym of metastasis (from 1646) or, more specifically, the moving of morbid matter to a place where it would do less harm (1745–1828).^[2][11] A general sense, a change or reversal of condition, is recorded from 1653 but has stayed rare.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "a transposition".^[12] In the 19th century chemistry took up the word for the exchange of atoms or groups between two molecules, especially double decomposition (1873),^[2][7] and classical prosody for quantitative metathesis, the exchange of length between two neighbouring vowels (1891).^[2]

Timeline

• 1577 – transposition of sounds or letters in a word.^[2][4]
• c. 1600 – transposition of words in rhetoric.^[3][9]
• 1646 – in medicine, metastasis of a disease (now rare).^[2]
• 1653 – a change or reversal of condition.^[2]
• 1745 – the removal of diseased matter to a less harmful part of the body (obsolete by 1828).^[2]
• 1873 – in chemistry, interchange of atoms between molecules; double decomposition.^[2]
• 1891 – quantitative metathesis, in classical prosody.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The transposition of two sounds, letters or syllables in a word; also the result of such a change.^[10][13][2]
2. (chemistry) double decomposition: the exchange of atoms or groups of atoms between two molecules.^[13][10][2]
3. (rare) A change of place or condition; a reversal.^[10][2]
4. (obsolete) In medicine, the movement of a disease or of diseased matter from one part of the body to another; metastasis.^[2][11]

Word family

• metathetic
• metathetically

Related words

• metathesize
• thesis
• theme
• metastasis

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins