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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
This entry popped up in a reverse look-up list, and I was curious as to what on earth it could mean:
hypocraterimorphous
\Hyp`o*cra*ter`i*mor"phous\, a. [Pref. hypo- + Gr. krath`r bowl + morfh` form.] (Bot.) Salver-shaped; having a slender tube, expanding suddenly above into a bowl-shaped or spreading border, as in the blossom of the phlox and the lilac.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
There was also an ominous line that it is also found in CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary.
tsuwm, I'll bet it's already been on wwftd.
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
There was also an ominous line that it is also found in CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary.Sounds like what happens when a cancer metastasizes spreading the maglignancy throughout the body. Just a guess. Actually I thought a "hypocratermorphous" is what happened to wooly mammoths when they fell into a tar pit, eventually morphing into fossilized remains. [Guess not.] This is new to me - "metastasis" can be used metaphorically: metastasis
n. Rhetoric, change of subject; movement to another part of body of agent causing disease; archaic, metabolism. metastasize, v.i. metastatic, a. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/difficultwords/data/d0008235.html
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
After a bit of a hunt I found this reference to the rhetorical use of metastasis in “Luciferous Logolepsy”: phr. - casual mention of a subject as if it were unimportant; responding to a person's criticism or insult with a riposte that uses or plays on his or her words And then rather more here: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/M/metastasis.htm
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
responding to a person's criticism or insult with a riposte that uses or plays on his or her words
That makes the association with the spread of a malignancy transparent metaphorically as well as rhetorically. Great link as well.
metastasis: from Gk. meta, "beyond, over" and stasis, "a standing or placing"
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