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
Rafael Nam, NPR, 19 July 2025
Advertisement But Israel hardly needed a sea change in the Trump view of his country.
—Tom Nagorski, Time, 18 July 2025
That mirrors a similar sea change in Council attitudes in recent years spurred largely by the ongoing housing crisis.
—Téa Kvetenadze, New York Daily News, 14 July 2025
The past two Euros have been won by their hosts (Netherlands, England), capturing the imagination of their nations and spawning sea changes of their own.
—Megan Feringa, New York Times, 3 July 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 31 Jul. 2025.
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