noun

• (uncountable) The premodern and early modern study of physical changes, particularly in Europe, Arabia, and China and chiefly in pursuit of an elixir of immortality, a universal panacea, and/or a philosopher's stone able to transmute base metals into gold, eventually developing into chemistry.
• (countable) The causing of any sort of mysterious sudden transmutation.
• (computing, slang, countable) Any elaborate transformation process or algorithm.