METATHESIS

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

Irregular inflected form: metatheses

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A chemical reaction between two compounds in which parts of each are interchanged to form two new compounds (AB+CD=AD+CB)

Synonyms:

double decomposition; double decomposition reaction; metathesis

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("metathesis" is a kind of...):

chemical reaction; reaction ((chemistry) a process in which one or more substances are changed into others)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "metathesis"):

double replacement reaction (a chemical reaction between two compounds where the positive ion of one compound is exchanged with the positive ion of another compound)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A linguistic process of transposition of sounds or syllables within a word or words within a sentence