chrysalis

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A butterfly pupa or the pupal stage of the butterfly lifestyle; (originally) any pupal stage of any insect wherein the pupa is largely inactive and takes no food.

   Amongst the particular signs testifying the same thing, are also those exhibited by worms which feed on herbs, which, when they are to undergo a metamorphosis, encompass themselves as with a womb, that they may be born again, being therein changed into nymphs and chrysalisses, and presently into beautiful butterflies, when they fly into the air as into their heaven, where the female sports with her male companion, as one conjugal partner with another, and they nourish themselves from odoriferous flowers, and lay their eggs, thus providing that their species may live after them: […]

2. 2
   noun

   Any limiting environment or situation escaped during one's growth or development in the manner of a butterfly.

   However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.

3. 3
   verb

   To form a chrysalis or cocoon.

   June 11. it chryſaliſed into a ſmall round ſilk-bag, mothed the 27th. […] The ground of the caterpillar is yellow, thick ſet with warts, and black-haired ſtars; chryſaliſed into a ſilk-bag Jan. 17. hatched the 28th into a yellow moth, ſhaded with red, as the painting repreſents it.

4. 4
   verb

   To metamorphize, to undergo metamorphosis, to transform.

   He is in uniform, and for three years flutters on the parade, in the beer-gardens, in the gallery at the theatre, and then he chrysalises into the old paternal bauer suit and the patriarchal ideas.

5. 5
   noun

   pupa of a moth or butterfly enclosed in a cocoon

6. 6
   noun

   The bare hanging cocoon of butterfly pupae; (originally) any cocoon.

7. 7
   name

   A hypothetical former moon of Saturn, whose gravitational influence is proposed as the source of Saturn's inclination and near-resonance with Uranus, and whose destruction by gravitational disruption is proposed as the source of Saturn's rings.

8. 8
   name

   A proposed generation ship, which would use fusion rockets and take 400 years to travel from the Sun to Alpha Centauri. See PROJECT HYPERION and Project Hyperion (interstellar).

Etymology

From Latin chrysalis, variant of chrȳsallis, from Ancient Greek χρυσαλλίς (khrusallís), usually derived from χρυσός (khrusós, “gold, golden”) + -αλλ- + -ις (-is, “-id: forming feminine nouns”) but compare θρυαλλίς (thruallís) and ἀρυβαλλίς (aruballís), both believed to come from a Pre-Greek substrate on the basis of their unusual endings.