sea change

Meaning

Noun

• A profound transformation; a metamorphosis.

Origin

• From Act I, scene ii, of The Tempest (1610–1611) by the English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616), spelling modernized: “Full fathom five thy father lies, / Of his bones are coral made: / Those are pearls that were his eyes, / Nothing of him that doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange”. The passage refers to how a drowned person’s body lying on the sea bed is transformed by the sea.