morpho-, morph-, -morphous, -morphically, -morphia, -morphosis, -morphously, -morphy, -morphic, -morphism
(Greek: shape, form, figure, appearance)
Origins of morpho- words
The Roman god of sleep is Somnus; so, when we are sleepy, we are "somnolent". Sleep walking is "somnambulism" which in Latin means exactly the same thing; that is, "sleepwalking".
The son of Somnus is Morpheus, the god of dreams, indicating that sleep gives birth to dreams. Morpheus goes back through Latin to the Greek word for "form" or "shape" because dreams are forms and shapes developed in the mind while sleeping.
2. Someone having both male and female features; at birth a condition in which the identification of male or female cannot be made.
Heteromorphic forms can take place at different times or at different stages of the life cycle of a plant having an alternation of vegetatively dissimilar generations.
2. A situation in which there is a replacing of missing pieces by new parts which are different from those that have been lost: The broken jug went through a heteromorphic process when it was repaired with pieces of material from a flower pot.
2. The embryonic development of a tissue or an organ inappropriate to its site.
3. The production in an organism of an abnormal or misplaced part, especially in place of one that has been lost (as the regeneration of a tail in place of a head).
4. The production of a malformed or malposed tissue or organ.
5. The formation of tissue of a different type from that from which it is derived.
3. In medicine, characterized by an atypical form or forms.
4. Differing from the standard form in size or structure: heteromorphic chromosome pairs.
Deviating from the normal, perfect, or mature form; having different forms at different stages of existence, or in different individuals of the same species; applied especially to insects in which there is a wide difference of form between the larva and the adult, and to plants having more than one form of flower.
2. In mathematics: A function between two topological spaces that is continuous, one-to-one, and onto, and the inverse of which is continuous. Also called topological transformation.
3. A correspondence between the points of two geometric shapes or two spaces in which each element can be paired with one from the other without any remaining.
2. In mathematics, a continuous bijection between two figures whose inverse is also continuous.