chrysalis

Etymology

From Latin chrysalis, from Ancient Greek χρυσαλλίς (khrusallís), from χρυσός (khrusós, “gold”), because of the color of some of them.

noun

1. The pupa of a butterfly or moth, enclosed inside a cocoon, in which metamorphosis takes place.
   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: […] 1828, The Athanasian Creed, Extracted from the Apocalypse or Book of Revelations Explained, of Emanuel Swedenborg, Boston, Mass.: Adonis Howard,[…], page 174
   The herbaceous or herbiferous produce had such gummy gelatinous properties, that tiniest tiddles incorporated themselves into huge chrysalisses, from whence monster butterflies egged it, all the world over, like snowberries, during a moist September, as soon as the blossom is by! 1857, Charles Hancock, Gaieties and Gravities for Holy Days and Holidays, London: Saunders and Otley,[…], page 155
   Caterpillars, chrysalisses soon reveal / The future gandy butterfly. 1865, [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe, translated by William Barnard Clarke, Translation of Goethe’s Faust, Iˢᵗ and IIⁿᵈ Parts, Freiburg: Schmidt, page 264
   Fanny was afraid. She was like an insect new-hatched from its chrysalis, naked and unprotected in a dawn she could not face. 1929, M. Barnard Eldershaw, chapter VII, in A House is Built, section VIII
   A project on butterflies! And caterpillars and chrysalisses and things, and lots of nice drawings, coloured with felt pens. 1979, Sheila Lavelle, My Best Fiend, London: Hamish Hamilton, page 165
2. The cocoon itself.
3. (figurative) A limiting environment or situation.
   No, no matter how far Ray Kurzweil gets with his artificial intelligence project at Google, we cannot simply rise from the chrysalis of matter as pure consciousness. 2020-09-01, Douglas Rushkoff, “The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods”, in OneZero

verb

1. To form a chrysalis.
   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. 1767, Jacobi Petiveri Opera, Historiam Naturalem Spectantia: Containing Several Thousand Figures of Birds, Beasts, Fish, Reptiles, Insects, Shells, Corals, and Fossils, volume I, London: […] John Millan,[…], pages 24–25
   One memorable day last January a caterpillar which had chrysalised happily in a ventilator came out in the office in full glory as a butterfly, under the impression it was summer. 1925, Punch, page 512
   Only in spring does a fourth larva, similar to the second one, develop, chrysalising later and then becoming a beetle. 1940, Karl von Frisch, translated by Ernst Fellner and Betty Inskip, You and Life, The Scientific Book Club, page 202
   The length of the worm period with temperature 11·4°C is 40—42 days, and with 24·5°C is 8—11 days. It chrysalises on the plant. 1957, Nauchni trudove, page 253
   These can be bought in any angling shop for a few pence, and can be kept in the fridge, to stop them from chrysalising, for at least a month. 1969, The Aquarist and Pondkeeper, page 202
   I hope to send it home if it chrysalises. 1974, Andrew Wainwright, Letters from Zimbabwe, page 21
   The Caterpillar, on the other hand, has a very firm understanding of the self he is, and cannot understand why Alice is not equally certain about her self; yet, as Alice later points out, the Caterpillar will at some stage undergo his own transformation, much more fundamental than hers, when he chrysalises and transforms into a butterfly. 2019, Martin P.J. Edwardes, The Origins of Self: An Anthropological Perspective, UCL Press, page 163
2. To metamorphize; 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. 1879, S[abine] Baring-Gould, Germany, Present and Past, volume I, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co.,[…], page 129
   “THE PALACE OF PUCK” CHRYSALISED INTO MUSICAL COMEDY—BUTTERFLIES AT THE APOLLO 1908, The Sphere: An Illustrated Newspaper for the Home, page 166
   Here philosophic thought overgrows art and compels it to cling close to the trunk of dialectics. The Apollonian tendency has chrysalised in the logical schematism; just as something analogous in the case of Euripides (and moreover a translation of the Dionysian into the naturalistic emotion) was forced upon our attention. 1909, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by W[illia]m A. Haussmann, edited by Oscar Levy, The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy, pages 109–110
   Operations of the Company are at present in the transition stage; the proposition is chrysalising from the state of initial enterprise into the larger magnitude of one of the foremost […] 1920, The South African Mining and Engineering Journal, page 541
   Their sizes are determined by the size and depth of lift-pump, always allowing a large margin of safety for flaws, fatigue of metal, changes of temperature and anno domini which is for ever chrysalising and rendering them brittle. 1921, China Clay Trade Review
   That was several years ago, and sure enough the tomboy chrysalised into the being known as “the Gellibrand,” the sophisticated beauty, the hot-house specimen who wore mediæval garments, and who moved instinctively in slow motion, about whom the whole town was talking. 1930, Cecil Beaton, The Book of Beauty, Duckworth, page 55
   A government caterpillar is chrysalising: what kind of butterfly flies away remains a matter for conjecture. 1965, British Communications and Electronics, page 247
   The skinny, dark-eyed girl whom I had refused to kiss—when we played “Johnny Brown” so many years before—had chrysalised into a slim-waisted butterfly who was quick to turn the tables on me. 1981, Pauline Marrington, In the Sweet Bye and Bye: Reminiscences of a Norfolk Islander, Reed, page 67
   Jessamine Morrow had chrysalised overnight: she was a monarch butterfly. 1987, Maureen McCoy, Summertime, Poseidon Press, page 41
   When the event of meeting is past, when the I-Thou butterfly has been chrysalised into I-She, or I-He, or other forms of I-It, the possibility of relationship still continues, and genuine relationship deepens through everyday interactions between moments of I-Thou meetings. 2003, Kenneth Paul Kramer, Mechthild Gawlick, Martin Buber’s I and Thou: Practicing Living Dialogue, New York, N.Y., Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, page 43
   Drumlin Caddis, Sentinel, has chrysalised and emerged as the Lord Freyr’s envoi. 2012, Robert Crisp, Braket’s People: A Tale Worthy of a Telling; Part 2, The Lost Light Elves, AuthorHouse, page 74
   The rugby club disbanded in 1896 for twenty-two years, five years before the football team chrysalised into Worcester City. 2013, Mike Bradbury, Lost Teams of the Midlands, Xlibris, page 428
   This who had chrysalised from beneath the thick middens of all our campfires, yet perfectly unmiff’d in manikin form of the mature woman that was just before us at the money drawer and now replaced. 2017, Bill Reed, Wi, Reed Independent
   Now that the sullen, dowdy-looking girl from the caravan had chrysalised into a sexy young woman, they wanted her more than ever. 2018, Martyn Waites, The Old Religion, Zaffre Publishing, Bonnier Zaffre, Bonnier Publishing