transmew

From Middle French transmuer, from Latin transmūtāre.

transmew (third-person singular simple present transmews, present participle transmewing, simple past and past participle transmewed)

1. (obsolete) To transmute, change.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.iii:

     Soone into other fits he was transmewed, / Till she to him her gratious speach renewed […]

   • 1593, Harvey, Gabriel, Pierce's Supererogation; or, A New Praise of the Old Ass‎, published 1815, pages 97–98:

     […] his sudden ruin ministered matter of most lamentable tears to his dear mother and loving sisters, insomuch, that they were pitifully changed, as some write, into alder trees, as some, into poplars. Sic flevit Clymene : sic et Clymeneides alta: as it might be the mournful church, and her wailing members, wofully transmewed into alders or poplars.

• Wertmans, straw men, strawmen, trewsman