transmogrify

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The Word of the Day for September 4 is:

transmogrify   \transs-MAH-gruh-fye\   verb
     : to change or alter greatly and often with grotesque or 
humorous effect

Example sentence:
     The movie's central character finds an odd-looking pair of 
glasses and is transmogrified into a heroic crime-fighter when 
he puts them on.

Did you know?
     We know that the prefix "trans-" means "across" or "beyond" 
and appears in many words that evoke change, such as "transform" 
and "transpire," but we don't know the exact origins 
of "transmogrify." The 17th-century dramatist, novelist, and 
poet Aphra Behn, who is regarded as England's first female 
professional writer, was among the first English authors to use 
the word. In her 1671 comic play "The Amorous Prince" Behn 
wrote, "I wou'd Love would transmogriphy me to a maid now." A 
century later, Scottish poet Robert Burns plied the word again 
in verse, aptly capturing the grotesque and sometimes humorous 
effect of transmogrification: "Social life and Glee sit 
down,... Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown Debauchery 
and Drinking."