• Today's Word

Protean

🔊 Listen to the word Protean 

PRO-tee-an

Definition

(adjective) Tending to change readily; capable of assuming many different forms, roles, or characters with apparent ease.

Example

Her protean career had taken her from investment banking to street photography to running a small vineyard — each chapter so complete it was hard to believe they belonged to the same person.

Word Origin

Protean derives from Proteus — the ancient Greek sea god capable of assuming any shape at will, who would change form to escape those who tried to capture and question him. To get an answer from Proteus you had to hold on through every transformation until he exhausted his changes and returned to his true form. The word entered English in the 16th century, used initially to describe literal shapeshifting before expanding into its modern sense of anything capable of remarkable, fluid adaptability.

 

Fun Fact

Proteus has given English more than just protean — the protein molecule was named after him in 1838 by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who chose the name specifically because proteins could take so many different structural forms. The same mythological figure thus sits at the root of both a common adjective and one of the most fundamental categories in biochemistry — which makes Proteus arguably the most scientifically productive figure in Greek mythology, which is saying something given the competition.