sea change
noun
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In The Tempest, William Shakespeare’s final play, sea change refers to a change brought about by the sea: the sprite Ariel, who aims to make Ferdinand believe that his father the king has perished in a shipwreck, sings within earshot of the prince, “Full fathom five thy father lies...; / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / into something rich and strange.” This is the original, now-archaic meaning of sea change. Today the term is used for a distinctive change or transformation. Long after sea change gained this figurative meaning, however, writers continued to allude to Shakespeare’s literal one; Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, and P.G. Wodehouse all used the term as an object of the verb suffer, but now a sea change is just as likely to be undergone or experienced.
Examples of sea change in a Sentence
Suzanne Blake, MSNBC Newsweek, 7 Nov. 2025
Autonomous driving has caught the imagination of tech companies and the auto industry, who predict a sea change in the transportation sector.
—Rob Nikolewski, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Nov. 2025
The 2010 law is more popular than ever, a sea change from 15 years ago, when Americans were more evenly divided on the law.
—Sam Gringlas, NPR, 5 Nov. 2025
In many ways, the iPhone Air underperforming is not a sea change for the company.
—Kif Leswing, CNBC, 29 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for sea change
Cite this Entry
“Sea change.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sea%20change. Accessed 14 Nov. 2025.
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