protean
3
9.2
- adjective
- /ˈproʊtiən/
- Formal
:
proteico
- Perhaps the protean Self-Portrait could be said to embody such an impishly playful spirit of fashion.
- the protean nature
- the protean character
- the protean self
And I really think that so much of what makes anti-Semitism so unique and persistent and protean, it all goes back to Christianity.
- And I really think that so much of what makes anti-Semitism so unique and persistent and protean, it all goes back to Christianity.
Examples
-
Now, a quarter of a century later, the protean concept of "dual identity" has returned in a new dispensation.
Academic text (2000) -
The virus is protean, changing from liquid to airborne to blood transmission, depending on its environment.
-
Point Four was especially significant because it gave institutional expression to a protean ideology of international development.
Academic text (2013) -
Angiosarcoma may also be difficult to diagnose because of its protean clinical nature.
Academic text (2006) -
Together, they constitute a messy and protean economy that is instrumental to modernism's scenes of writing.
Academic text (2017) -
The communitarian movement, or theory, as the case may be, is nothing if not protean (and enduring).
Academic text (1999) -
Justice is a protean subject that philosophers have spent millennia disagreeing about.
Academic text (2016) -
Readers have traditionally seen in much Renaissance fiction-making the vision of a protean but unified cosmos.
Academic text (1998) -
Renal atheroembolic disease is a difficult and controversial diagnosis for the protean extrarenal manifestations of the disease.
Academic text (2007) -
His protean talents allowed him to excel in acting, singing, and even painting.
Synonyms
23
3.4
Able to change to fit new situations
8
4.2
Easy to bend or shape
3
7.7
Likely to change often
1
8.3
Able to change appearance or behaviour easily to fit different situations
1
6.5
Likely to change often
Antonyms
How Versatile
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Protean comes from the Greek sea god Proteus, who could change his shape to avoid capture. So something protean can quickly 'change' or take many different forms, which is why we use the word for people or things that are very flexible.