Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To be transmitted or transferred by metastasis.
- intransitive verb To be changed or transformed, especially dangerously.
- intransitive verb To spread, especially destructively.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In pathology, to produce new foci of disease in more or less distant parts by means of metastasis: referring usually to malignant growths.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- verb to spread from one part of the body to other parts, and grow there; to spread by metastasis{3}; -- said of cancer cells.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb medicine, of a disease or tumour To spread to other sites in the body; to undergo
metastasis .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb spread throughout the body
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Moving on to Europe, Huntsman used the word "metastasize" to describe the euro crisis.
GOP presidential debate in South Carolina - as it happened 2011
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Then Rick Perry is asked a similar question – and he doesn't use the word "metastasize".
GOP presidential debate in South Carolina - as it happened 2011
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You take out the main operational leader and then the cells kind of metastasize and become harder targets because they're dispersed.
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You take out the main operational leader and then the cells kind of metastasize and become harder targets because they're dispersed.
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Al Qaeda is indeed something like a sickness; it is like a cancerous growth that can metastasize at totally unforeseen places, as the London and Madrid attacks showed.
Carlo Strenger: Lessons from 9/11: Cool-Headedness More Effective than Rage in Fighting Terrorism Carlo Strenger 2011
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Questions like: What makes a tumor metastasize, or spread through the body?
New Hope For Cancer Therapy AP 2010
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While the fiscal problems "aren't prompting long-term yields to surge at present, there could come a sudden tipping point with this kind of problem, and it could metastasize to a more serious phase," he said at a news conference.
Japan Bond Yield Falls to 7-Month Low on Greece Concerns Andrew Monahan 2011
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Convinced that private tutoring is a "slippery slope," the father was certain that a biology tutor would only teach his son that if he made a mess, someone would be there to clean it up and, moreover, this mindset would metastasize into other areas of his son's life.
Alex Mallory: Isn't Tutoring Just a Crutch? Alex Mallory 2011
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While the fiscal problems "aren't prompting long-term yields to surge at present, there could come a sudden tipping point with this kind of problem, and it could metastasize to a more serious phase," he said at a news conference.
Japan Bond Yield Falls to 7-Month Low on Greece Concerns Andrew Monahan 2011
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But breast tumors, not fatal by themselves, can metastasize to the lungs or other vital organs before they are large enough to be discovered by a mammogram — in which case the women is likely to die whether she has a mammogram or not.
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