metaphasis

1. uncountableThe accidental transposition of part of the sounds of two words in a phrase; the production of spoonerisms.

   The technical term for this transposition is metaphasis.

   2009, Denise Sutherland, Word Searches For Dummies, →ISBN, page 76

   3 more examples

   'Oxford's great metaphasiarch', as Punch once called him, was seldom guilty of metaphasis, or the transposition of sounds. What he transposed was ideas.

   1953, Sir Ernest Barker, Age and Youth: Memories of Three Universities ; And, Father of the Man, page 46

   Dr. Ashok suffered from a mild form of metaphasis. He made Spoonerisms.

   1979, Gore Vidal, Kalki, →ISBN, page 31

   But couldn’t it be that there is a distinction to be made between ‘metaphasis’ and ‘metathesis’? The OED defines the latter as ‘the interchange of position between sounds or letters in a word’ (my italics). An example would be Old English bridd becoming modern bird. This leaves ‘metaphasis’ free to describe what Spooner did: transpose sounds between different words, like his classic ‘our queer Dean’.

   1986 October 23, Adrian Room, “Letters”, in London Review of Books

plural metaphases

1. alternativecountableuncountablebiologyAlternative form of metaphase.

   The sister chromatid exchange (SCE) assay measures the drug-induced metaphasis SCE.

   2013, Davide Schiffer, Brain Tumors: Pathology and its Biological Correlates, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   The reason is that homologous pairing takes place before metaphasis, during pachytene.

   1992, Pieter Jan Cornelis Kuiper, Plantago: a multidisciplinary study, page 234

   The nuclei at the 9.55 stage show some indication of change, but none of them have reached the metaphasis of the process of division, while at 11.25 the metaphasis was finished and the protoplasm already aggregated round the daughter nuclei.

   1893 February 2, Arthur Lister, “On the division of Nuclei in the Mycetozoa”, in The Journal of the Linnean Society of London: Botany, volume 29, page 531

2. alternativecountableuncountablebiologyAlternative form of metaphysis.

   Next, a 1 cm longitudinal incision is created dorsally over the proximal shaft and metaphasis of the proximal phalanx.

   2012, Selene G. Parekh, Foot and Ankle Surgery, →ISBN, page 82

   2 more examples

   There is abrupt lateral bending of the medial cortex wall of the proximal tibial metaphasis and, in the older child, deformity and retarded development of the ipsilateral epiphyseal plateau68

   2013, B. G. Brogdon, Tor Shwayder, Jamie Elifritz, Child Abuse and its Mimics in Skin and Bone, →ISBN

   The evidence of previous fractures is seen in the metaphasis as masses of calcified matrix showing an abnormal architecture and surrounded by an excess of bone.

   1955, Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital - Volume 97, page 408