reify

reify

English

WOTD – 22 August 2007

Etymology

Back-formation from reification, calque from German. Formed as Latin rēs (“thing”) +‎ -ify (English suffix).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈɹiː.ə.faɪ/, /ˈɹeɪ.ə.faɪ/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (US)

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Verb

reify (third-person singular simple present reifies, present participle reifying, simple past and past participle reified)

1. (transitive) to regard something abstract as if it were a concrete material thing

Synonyms

• conceptualize, concretize, objectify, picture, thingify

Related terms

• dereify
• dereification
• reification

Translations

to regard something abstract as if it were a concrete material thing

Arabic: جَسَّدَ‎ (jassada), جَسَّمَ‎ (jassama) Catalan: reïficar (ca) Dutch: concretiseren (nl), verstoffelijken Finnish: havainnollistaa (fi), tehdä käsinkosketeltavaksi French: réifier (fr) German: verdinglichen (de), vergegenständlichen (de), reifizieren (de) (rare) Hebrew: המחיש‎ (himkhísh)

Norwegian: Bokmål: tingliggjøre Portuguese: coisificar Russian: материализовать (ru) (materializovatʹ) Spanish: cosificar (es) Turkish: cisimleştirmek, maddeleştirmek, somutlaştırmak (tr)

See also

• personify

Anagrams

• fiery, firey