transubstantiate

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

From tran- + substantiate.

For hee never said, that of what Bread soever, any Priest whatsoever, should say, "This is my Body," or, "This is Christs Body," the same should presently be transubstantiated. — Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
So down they sat, And to their viands fell; nor seemingly The Angel, nor in mist, the common gloss Of Theologians; but with keen dispatch Of real hunger, and concoctive heat To transubstantiate: What redounds, transpires Through Spirits with ease; nor wonder; if by fire Of sooty coal the empirick alchemist Can turn, or holds it possible to turn, Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold, As from the mine. — Paradise Lost, John Milton
I see some who transform and transubstantiate themselves into as many new shapes and new beings as they undertake new employments; and who strut and fume even to the heart and liver, and carry their state along with them even to the close-stool: I cannot make them distinguish the salutations made to themselves from those made to their commission, their train, or their mule: “Tantum se fortunx permittunt, etiam ut naturam dediscant.” [“They so much give themselves up to fortune, as even to unlearn nature.”--Quintus Curtius, iii. — Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete, Michel de Montaigne

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