shapeshifter

• shape-shifter

shape +‎ shifter

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈʃeɪpʃɪftɚ/

shapeshifter (plural shapeshifters)

1. (fantasy, mythology) A creature capable of changing its appearance or form at will.
   • 2000: Glen Cook, Water Sleeps

     The shapeshifter Lisa Bowalk, unable to shed the guise of a black panther, had gone onto the plain as a prisoner but was not now to be found among the dead above or the Captured down below.

   • 2003: Michael Bathgate, The Fox's Craft in Japanese Religion and Folklore: Shapeshifters, Transformations and Duplicities

     Like the teller of shapeshifter stories—who conjures a shifting world of perceptions and expectations for his or her audience that is strikingly similar to the worlds created by the shapeshifter for its victims—the cultural practice of imagination...is an inherently shifty enterprise....

   • 2004: Devin Grayson, Smallville: City

     There have also been verified reports of fire-starters and ice-makers and a shapeshifter so powerful she was able to frame another Smallville citizen for a bank robbery!

• See Thesaurus:shape-shifter.

• phase shifter