metastasize
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: medicine
oncology
sciences
Etymology: From metastasis + -ize (suffix forming verbs meaning to do things denoted by the adjectives or nouns the suffix is attached to). Metastasis is a learned borrowing from Late Latin metastasis (“(rhetoric) rapid or sudden transition from one argument, point, or topic to another”), and from its etymons Koine Greek μετάστασις (metástasis, “(rhetoric) rapid or sudden transition from one argument, point, or topic to another”) and Ancient Greek μετάστασις (metástasis, “change; removal; (medicine) movement of disease, pain, etc., from one part of the body to another”), from μετᾰ- (metă-, prefix denoting change in condition or position) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *meth₂) + στᾰ́σῐς (stắsĭs, “condition, state; position”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand (up)”)), modelled after μεθιστάναι (methistánai, “to change; to remove”).
The use of French métastase (“metastasis”) to refer to the spread of cancer was coined in 1829 by the French gynecologist Joseph Récamier (1774–1852).
Base: metastasis
Affixes: -ize
Inflected forms:
form: metastasizes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: metastasizing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: metastasized
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: metastasized
pos: verb
tags: past
form: metastasise
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: metastatize
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Of a disease (especially cancer) or a tumour: to form a metastasis (“a secondary focus away from the primary site”) in (a body organ).
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
specifically
transitive
examples: "I remember the first time he woke up throwing up, and my first thought wasn't, 'Oh he has the stomach flu,'" she [Rene McNall-Knapp] said. "It was, 'Oh, it's gone to his brain, and it's metastasized his brain, and he's throwing up because of that.'"
gloss: To disseminate or spread (something, often an undesirable thing), especially in a destructive manner.
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
figuratively
transitive
examples: In a broader sense, criticism as a form is in trouble. And celebrities like [Ariana] Grande, like [Michael] Che, like [Olivia] Munn, who swat at it to the delight of their fans, concerningly seem to metastasize the problem.
gloss: Of a disease (especially cancer) or a tumour: to undergo metastasis (“spreading from a primary site to one or more other sites in the body”).
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
intransitive
specifically
examples: On other screens are closeups of skin pores, before and after, details of regimes for everything, your hands, your neck, your thighs. Your elbows, especially your elbows: aging begins at the elbows and metastasizes.
Your lump could be a secondary cancer metastasized from the bowel. I had a patient like that not long ago.
gloss: Of a thing, often one which is undesirable: to disseminate or spread, especially in a destructive manner.
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
figuratively
intransitive
examples: Late last month, a conservative website called The Federalist published an article advocating that healthy, young Americans deliberately infect themselves with Covid-19, […] If enough Americans expose themselves to the virus and become immune, the theory goes, the country would have a mobilized cadre of immune citizens. […] The article was widely discredited by public health experts and economists, as both logically dubious and ethically specious, but such thinking has already metastasized.
Related words: metastasis
metastatic
Derived words: metastasizability
metastasizer
metastasizing
nonmetastasized
nonmetastasizing
unmetastasised
unmetastasized
Translations:
lang: Catalan
word: metastatitzar
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 轉移 /转移
roman: zhuǎnyí
lang: Danish
word: metastasere
lang: Dutch
word: metastaseren
lang: Dutch
word: uitzaaien
lang: Finnish
word: metastasoida
lang: Finnish
word: metastasoitua
lang: French
word: métastaser
lang: German
word: metastasieren
lang: German
word: absiedeln
lang: Hungarian
word: metasztatizál
lang: Hungarian
word: áttétet képez
lang: Hungarian
word: áttétet ad
lang: Italian
word: metastatizzare
lang: Japanese
word: 転移する
roman: ten'i suru
lang: Macedonian
word: метастазира
roman: metastazira
lang: Polish
word: dawać przerzuty
lang: Polish
word: dać przerzuty
lang: Romanian
word: metastaza
lang: Spanish
word: metastatizar
lang: Spanish
word: metastizar
lang: Swedish
word: metastasera
lang: Vietnamese
word: di căn
lang: Finnish
word: levittää
lang: Finnish
word: levitä
lang: Polish
word: rozprzestrzeniać
lang: Polish
word: rozprzestrzenić