chrysalis meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

chrysalis

noun

/ˈkɹɪsəlɪs/

Etymology From Latin chrysalis, variant of chrȳsallis, from Ancient Greek χρυσαλλίς (khrusallís), usually derived from χρυσός (khrusós, “gold, golden”) + -αλλ- + -ις (-is, “-id: forming feminine nouns”) but compare θρυαλλίς (thruallís) and ἀρυβαλλίς (aruballís), both believed to come from a Pre-Greek substrate on the basis of their unusual endings.

A butterfly pupa or the pupal stage of the butterfly lifestyle; (originally) any pupal stage of any insect wherein the pupa is largely inactive and takes no food.

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:

3 more examples

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, →ISBN, page 165:

The bare hanging cocoon of butterfly pupae; (originally) any cocoon.

Figuratively Any limiting environment or situation escaped during one's growth or development in the manner of a butterfly.

However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
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 September 1, Douglas Rushkoff, “The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods”, in OneZero:

Derived terms: chrysalid, chrysaline, Chrysalis, chrysalised, chrysalism, chrysaloid, teleiochrysalis

chrysalis

verb

To form a chrysalis or cocoon.

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:

4 more examples

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:

To metamorphize, to undergo metamorphosis, 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 APOLLO1908, The Sphere: An Illustrated Newspaper for the Home, page 166:

4 more examples

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: