Transubstantiation
//tɹænz.səbˈstæn.ʃiˌeɪ.ʃən// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The doctrine holding that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are essentially transformed into the body and blood of Jesus. countable, uncountable
"I was openly dismissive about transubstantiation, by which the host is consecrated, and according to Catholic doctrine, literally turns from mere bread into the body of Christ. “But all the atoms stay the same!” I would insist. “That makes no sense!”"
- 2 an act that changes the form or character or substance of something wordnet
- 3 Conversion of one substance into another. broadly, countable, uncountable
- 4 the Roman Catholic doctrine that the whole substance of the bread and the wine changes into the substance of the body and blood of Christ when consecrated in the Eucharist wordnet
Example
More examples"A solitary man standing on the hilltop turned slowly from mountain to valley, from sky to field, seeming to eat and drink and breathe—to make a part of him by some paganish transubstantiation—the very day itself."
Etymology
Borrowed from Medieval Latin trānsubstantiātiō.
More for "transubstantiation"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.