sea change

plural sea changes

1. idiomaticA profound transformation; a metamorphosis.

   Public opinion has undergone a sea change since the 2002 elections.

   5 more examples

   A few days wrought, as it were, a magical "sea change" in everything around us. The late dark and angry sea, lashed up into roaring and swashing surges, became calm and sunny; the rude winds died away; and gradually a light breeze sprang up directly aft.

   1842 March, “The Bermudas”, in The Ladies’ Cabinet of Fashion, Music, and Romance, volume VII, London: Geo[rge] Henderson, […], →OCLC, page 188

   His [Frederick Marryat's] last work, ‘Percival Keane’ (1842), betrays no falling-off, but, on the contrary, is one of the most vigorous and interesting of his ‘sea changes.’

   1851, “Captain Frederick Marryat”, in Robert Chambers, editor, Cyclopædia of English Literature: A Selection of the Choicest Productions of English Authors, from the Earliest to the Present Time, […], volume II, Boston, Mass.: Gould and Lincoln, […], →OCLC, page 622, column 2

   [S]uddenly, a "sea change" came over his features, […]

   1854 January 14, Supplement to The Courant. […], volume XIX, number 1, Hartford, Conn.: Boswell & Faxon, →OCLC, page 8, column 1

   Assuredly the fine old North Carolinan [William Alexander Graham], who has meanwhile himself gone under politically, as little anticipated while penning this sententious answer the "sea-change" as the sectional one which was to come after him. A "sea-change" has indeed transpired.

   1869 December 4, “Submarine Warfare”, in The United States Army and Navy Journal and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces, volume VII, number 16, New York, N.Y.: Army and Navy Journal, →OCLC, page 237, column 1

   It is interesting to watch how the most unpromising subject seems to warm and assimilate with his [John Randolph of Roanoke's] genius. Everything undergoes a seachange.

   1879 October, W. C. B., “John Randolph: A Sketch”, in W. P. Kent, editor, The Virginia University Magazine, volume XIX, number 1, Charlottesville, Va.: Literary Societies of the University of Virginia; Chronicle Steam Book and Job Printing Office, →OCLC, page 38

   Synonyms: development, transfiguration, transmogrification, conversion, development, metamorphosis, transfiguration, transfigurement