metathesis

  1. Noun.  (prosody) the transposition of letters, syllables or sounds within a word, such as in ask as /æks/.
  2. Noun.  (inorganic chemistry) the double decomposition of inorganic salts.
  3. Noun.  (organic chemistry) the breaking and reforming of double bonds in olefins in which substituent groups are swapped.

This is an unmodified, but possibly outdated, definition from Wiktionary and used here under the Creative Commons license. Wiktionary is a great resource. If you like it too, please donate to Wikimedia.

This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.