mutate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mūtātus (“changed”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the past participle of mūtō (“to change”),^{[2][3][7][5][8]} as the revised OED has it.^[2] Etymonline, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead take it as a back-formation from mutation,^[9][10][11] which, like mutable, came into English centuries earlier, in the 14th.^[8][2] The Latin verb is from Proto-Indo-European *mei- (“to change, go, move”),^[9][7][8] also the source of mutual, common and probably migrate,^[8] and it gave English mews and moult.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To change or transform something: 1796, in a letter of T. Twining, punningly; this transitive use is now obsolete.^[2] The usual date, 1818, belongs to the intransitive sense "to change, to be transformed", in J. Brown's Psyche.^[2][3][9]

Semantic evolution

The general sense "to undergo change" is the older one.^[2][9] In 1913, in the American Naturalist, the verb was first used for undergoing genetic mutation,^[2][9] and transitively, for causing such a change, from 1961.^[2] The genetic sense also has extended uses.^[2][4] Ayto calls the word semantically probably the most direct English descendant of the root.^[8] In linguistics it was used from 1981 of a sound or word undergoing mutation.^[2] Related forms from the Latin participle include a rare botanical adjective, "changed" (1840),^[2][10] and a noun, a form having a mutated vowel, recorded in H. Sweet in 1875–6;^[2][10][3] a noun also names, from 1922, a kind of chess problem in which the key move replaces one block by another.^[2][10]

Timeline

• 1796 – transitive, to change or transform (obsolete by 1882).^[2]
• 1818 – intransitive, to undergo change.^[2][3][9]
• 1840 – adjective, in botany, changed.^[2]
• 1875–6 – noun, a form having a mutated vowel.^[2]
• 1913 – to undergo genetic mutation.^[2][9]
• 1922 – noun, a chess problem.^[2]
• 1961 – transitive, to cause genetic mutation.^[2]
• 1981 – in linguistics, to undergo mutation.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To undergo mutation, or cause something to undergo it, especially in genes: The virus mutated quickly in the warmer months.^[4][3][2]
2. To change or be transformed into something else: The small protest mutated into a national movement.^[4][2][10]
3. In linguistics, of a sound or word, to undergo mutation.^[2]

Noun

1. A mutant.^[3]
2. (rare) A word form with a mutated vowel.^[3][2][10]
3. In chess, a problem in which the key move replaces one block by another.^[2][10]

Adjective

1. (obsolete, 1840) In botany, changed.^[2][10]

Word family

• mutative

Related words

• mutatis mutandis
• mutation
• mutant
• mutable
• mutual
• moult
• mews
• migrate
• common

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 v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press