chrysalis

noun

1. 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.

   “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!”

   “Caterpillars, chrysalisses soon reveal / The future gandy butterfly.”

   “Fanny was afraid. She was like an insect new-hatched from its chrysalis, naked and unprotected in a dawn she could not face.”

   “A project on butterflies! And caterpillars and chrysalisses and things, and lots of nice drawings, coloured with felt pens.”

2. The bare hanging cocoon of butterfly pupae; (originally) any cocoon.
3. (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.”

   “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.”

verb

1. 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.”

   “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.”

   “Only in spring does a fourth larva, similar to the second one, develop, chrysalising later and then becoming a beetle.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. 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.”

   ““THE PALACE OF PUCK” CHRYSALISED INTO MUSICAL COMEDY—BUTTERFLIES AT THE APOLLO”

   “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.”

   “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 […]”

   “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.”

name

1. A hypothetical former moon of Saturn, whose gravitational influence is proposed as the source of Saturn's inclination and near-resonance with Uranus, and whose destruction by gravitational disruption is proposed as the source of Saturn's rings.
2. A proposed generation ship, which would use fusion rockets and take 400 years to travel from the Sun to Alpha Centauri. See PROJECT HYPERION and Project Hyperion (interstellar).