sea change

Definition

A profound transformation; a metamorphosis.

Etymology

From Act I, scene ii, of The Tempest (1610–1611) by the English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616), spelling modernized: “Full fathom five thy father lies, / Of his bones are coral made: / Those are pearls that were his eyes, / Nothing of him that doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange”. The passage refers to how a drowned man’s body lying on the sea bed had been transformed by the sea.

Example Sentences

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