• transmogrify •
Printable Version Pronunciation: trænz-mah-grê-fai • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Verb, transitive
Meaning: 1. To transfigure or transform into something grotesque, to change or alter the appearance of. 2. To astound, to astonish and confound.
Notes: Because this fake Latinate (from Latin) word is so cleverly contrived, we can derive a complete family of words from it: transmogrification (process noun), transmogrifier (agent noun), transmogrifiable (passive adjective), and so forth and so on. Have fun! There are no tricks of spelling other than the shift of [y] to [i] whenever a suffix follows.
In Play: Remember that this Good Word is more specific than transfigure or transform; it means to transfigure for the worse: "Barbara Seville has transmogrified her hair into a ghoulish multicolored pincushion!" Here is how we use both senses of this word in the same sentence: "Herschel was transmogrified by the transmogrification of his date when she removed her make-up."
Word History: This word originated in someone's confused mind before 1656. It was occasionally spelled transmigrafy, which suggests that our Good Word may have resulted from the addition of -fy to transmigure by someone less than fully educated. This corrupted verb is a conflation of transmigrate and transfigure that was used occasionally in the 18th century. Apparently, only people were transmogrified originally; now we can do it to anything. (Chris Stewart, a long-time friend from South Africa, suggested this good but mysterious word.)
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