hypostatize

English

Alternative forms

• hypostatise

Verb

1. (transitive) To make into, or regard as, a separate and distinct substance; to construe a contextually-subjective and complex abstraction, idea, or concept as a universal object without regard to nuance or change in character.
   • Cardozo Law Review, February 2005

     Progressives are wrong to hypostatize their belief in mankind's eternal advance, and to disavow anything that does not fit this preordained vision.

   • Thomas Henry Huxley, Scientific and Pseudo-scientific Realism, 1892

     On the other hand, there were a few who could see no objective reality in anything but individuals, and looked upon both species and genera as hypostatized universals.

2. (transitive) To attribute actual or personal existence to.
   • Paul Evdokimov, Orthodoxy, 2011

     Roman Christianity is characterized by filial love and obedience expressed towards the fatherly authority hypostatized in the first Person of the Trinity....