chrysalis

See also: Chrysalis

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

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

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈkɹɪsəlɪs/, enPR: krĭʹsəlĭs
    • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Noun

chrysalis (plural chrysalises or chrysalides)

  1. The pupa of a butterfly or moth, enclosed inside a cocoon, in which metamorphosis takes place.
    • 1929, M. Barnard Eldershaw, chapter VII, in A House is Built, viii:
      Fanny was afraid. She was like an insect new-hatched from its chrysalis, naked and unprotected in a dawn she could not face.
  2. The cocoon itself.
  3. (figuratively) A limiting environment or situation.
    • 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 222716698:
      However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.
    • 2020 September 1, Douglas Rushkoff, “The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods”, in OneZero‎:
      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.

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