chrysalid

1. not comparableOf or relating to a chrysalis.

   The larva which is fed on honey first adopts a false chrysalid appearance and afterwards goes back to its earlier form, though the necessity for these transformations escapes us entirely.

   1924, Alexander Teixeira De Mattos, The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles

   3 more examples

   Dark: In Larva, Pupa, and Flight details the transformation from a chrysalid state of frustration--rendered here by a dark, mechanistic environment complete with droning soundscape--to a fleeting interlude of freedom.

   2003 June 20, Kerry Reid, “Choice Cuts”, in Chicago Reader

   Most of the omissions of matter often treated in textbooks are intentional; for as a subject develops, it is important, especially in books meant to be introductory, to discard the marks of the chrysalid stage before thought had wings.

   1922, Hubert D. Henderson, Supply and Demand

   But, for all that, there had been intervals, ere his thirteen years' exile ended, in which, so far from regret, he experienced a certain joy at remembrance of this rough and rugged point of time where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to one of action and freedom and real life.

   1860, Various, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860

plural chrysalids

1. archaicArchaic form of chrysalis.

   Of the other chrysalids seven are living at this date (15th October).

   1872, William Henry Edwards, The Butterflies of North America