Definition of "metastasis" []

• Pathology Transmission of pathogenic microorganisms or cancerous cells from an original site to one or more sites elsewhere in the body, usually by way of the blood vessels or lymphatics. (noun)
• A secondary cancerous growth formed by transmission of cancerous cells from a primary growth located elsewhere in the body. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Medical science has applied the term metastasis to such spreading and reappearing of malignant tumors after extirpation."
• "The word metastasis, used to describe the migration of cancer from one site to another, is a curious mix of meta and stasis—“beyond stillness” in Latin—an unmoored, partially unstable state that captures the peculiar instability of modernity."
• "This process is called metastasis, which means that the cancer has spread."