transformation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or an instance of transforming.
• noun The state of being transformed.
• noun A marked change, as in appearance or character, usually for the better.
• noun Replacement of the variables in an algebraic expression by their values in terms of another set of variables.
• noun A mapping of one space onto another or onto itself.
• noun Linguistics An operation or rule that changes one linguistic structure (especially a syntactic structure) into another, as by the merger, relocation, or deletion of one of its constituents.
• noun The change undergone by an animal cell upon infection by a cancer-causing virus.
• noun The introduction of DNA from one cell into another by means of a bacteriophage or one of a variety of chemical or physical methods.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In geometry, an operation which replaces a given figure by a second figure.
• noun In electricity, change in the voltage of an alternating-current circuit by means of a transformer or other device.
• noun The act or operation of transforming, or the state of being transformed; a change in form, appearance, nature, disposition, condition, or the like.
• noun In biology, metamorphosis, in any sense; especially, the metamorphosis of those organisms which undergo obvious and great changes of form, as that of insects in passing from the larval to the imaginal state.
• noun The change of one metal into another; transmutation of metals, according to the alchemists.
• noun In mathematics, a passage in the imagination from one figure or expression to another different in form but equal in quantity.
• noun In pathology, a morbid change in a part, which consists in the conversion of its texture into one which is natural to some other part, as when soft parts are converted into cartilage or bone. Such transformation is generally a degenerative or retrograde metamorphosis.
• noun In physiology, the change which takes place in the component parts of the blood during its passage from the minute arteries through the capillary system of vessels into the radicles of the venous system. There are three kinds of change, designated by the terms intussusception, apposition, and secretion.
• noun In physics, change from solid to liquid or from liquid to gaseous state, or the converse.
• noun The shape to which some person or thing has been transformed.
• noun A transformation by means of a lineolinear equation connecting the old variable with the new one. Such a transformation is called homographic because it does not alter the value of an anharmonic ratio.
• noun A transformation by means of polar triangles in spherical trigonometry.
• noun Synonyms See transform, v. t.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of transforming, or the state of being transformed; change of form or condition.
• noun (Biol.) Any change in an organism which alters its general character and mode of life, as in the development of the germ into the embryo, the egg into the animal, the larva into the insect (metamorphosis), etc.; also, the change which the histological units of a tissue are prone to undergo. See Metamorphosis.
• noun (Physiol.) Change of one from of material into another, as in assimilation; metabolism; metamorphosis.
• noun (Alchemy) The imagined possible or actual change of one metal into another; transmutation.
• noun (Theol.) A change in disposition, heart, character, or the like; conversion.
• noun (Math.) The change, as of an equation or quantity, into another form without altering the value.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The act of transforming or the state of being transformed.
• noun A marked change in appearance or character, especially one for the better.
• noun mathematics The replacement of the variables in an algebraic expression by their values in terms of another set of variables; a mapping of one space onto another or onto itself; a function that changes the position or direction of the axes of a coordinate system.
• noun linguistics A rule that systematically converts one syntactic form into another; a sentence derived by such a rule.
• noun genetics The alteration of a bacterial cell caused by the transfer of DNA from another, especially if pathogenic.
• noun politics, South Africa Ideologically driven government policy - becoming more conformant with socialist and African nationalist groupthink.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun (genetics) modification of a cell or bacterium by the uptake and incorporation of exogenous DNA
• noun a rule describing the conversion of one syntactic structure into another related syntactic structure
• noun a qualitative change
• noun the act of changing in form or shape or appearance
• noun (mathematics) a function that changes the position or direction of the axes of a coordinate system