transfigure

To transfigure a human villain into a demonic one, ostensibly the ultimate moral indictment, in practice amounts to a kind of cinematic vindication.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2023

They appear as ready to transfigure as Furey is to switch artistic mode.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 24, 2023

These phenomena transfigure copyrights, patents, and trademarks into subjects of everyday importance.

From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2022

Their sorcery can transfigure people and things, bestow good or bad luck, heal or hurt — or even offer protection from danger.

From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2021

It kept crackling and sparking at odd moments, and every time Ron tried to transfigure his beetle it engulfed him in thick gray smoke that smelled of rotten eggs.

From "Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets" by J. K. Rowling

What radiates from Eika’s gritty magical realism is ambient but potent: a grief so profound that it transfigures, a loneliness so abject that it fractures perception.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 19, 2021

All great art is consoling because it transfigures our ordinary feelings into something bigger.

From The Guardian ● Nov. 11, 2016

The show, which is having its world premiere here at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, boldly transfigures the whimsical charms of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's movie into sparkling musical comedy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2015

Just as “Queen of Earth” transfigures its narrative conflicts into an exalted cinematic music, it retrospectively emphasizes the tonal values of Perry’s earlier films.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 18, 2015

A line of Shakespeare’s or of Wordsworth’s, blending with a vein of high feeling or deep reflection, transfigures the entire passage as if by magic.

From Hazlitt on English Literature An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by Jacob Zeitlin

In imagining her disturbed perceptions, the novel shows the old dog’s circumscribed world transfigured by long forgotten yearnings and powerfully altered understandings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

His inauguration was a ritual of devotion, an arena where the less powerful — which means practically everybody — was transfigured by his presence.

From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2025

At the instant the lunar disk slips entirely over the solar disk, the sun is abruptly transfigured into a foreign object.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2024

The following year, he changed his own name to Akhenaten, meaning “the transfigured spirit of the solar orb,” and moved himself and his entire family to the new city.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

Blanca’s face didn’t look hysterical, just a little transfigured.

From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez

Still, the speed at which generative AI appears to be capable of transfiguring workplaces — seemingly overnight — is dizzying, especially relative to prior technological breakthroughs.

From Seattle Times ● May 12, 2023

Born in Antigua, Kincaid invents aesthetics which are wholly unique, transfiguring human form and surroundings, in particular, the Caribbean landscapes.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 2, 2019

As for “Burning” and “The Rider,” they effortlessly bridged character and environment, transfiguring the natural world itself into a psychological landscape.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 12, 2019

And at the appointed hour, just as their guidebook had promised, the transfiguring music of plainsong rose from the crypt below them, a few wide steps down from the main body of the church.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 10, 2018

Her face was a reflection of many things; a sum of many transfiguring, even violent events.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy