metempsychosis

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the supposed transmigration of a soul at death into another body, whether human, animal, or another living form

   The novel treats metempsychosis comically by placing its hero's soul inside a sofa.

Through Late Latin metempsychosis from Greek metempsychosis, built from meta-, 'change or transfer,' + empsychoun, 'to animate or put a soul into,' from psyche, 'soul.' The doctrine is associated especially with Pythagorean, Orphic, and several South Asian traditions.

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