metastasis

Etymology

Coined in 1829 by Joseph Récamier. From Late Latin, from Ancient Greek μετάστασις (metástasis, “removal, change”), from μεθίστημι (methístēmi, “to remove, to change”).

noun

1. A change in nature, form, or quality.
2. (medicine) The transference of a bodily function or disease to another part of the body, specifically the development of a secondary area of disease remote from the original site, as with some cancers.
   Stayed in her own house, searched her body each morning and examined her conscience each night for progressive symptoms of the metastasis she feared was in her. 1963, Thomas Pynchon, V.
3. (figurative) The spread of a harmful event to another location, like the metastasis of a cancer.
4. (rhetoric) Denying adversaries' arguments and turning the arguments back on them.