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.
   • 2024 September, Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, page 349. "What I've always appreciated about this concept of coincidence ... is how it reifies our search for causality, our need to establish logical connections among disparate events."

Synonyms

• concretize, objectify, picture, thingify

Coordinate terms

• realize (make real)

Related terms

• dereify
• dereification
• reification

Translations

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

• Arabic: جَسَّدَ (jassada), جَسَّمَ (ar) (jassama)
• Bulgarian: материализирам (materializiram)
• Catalan: reïficar (ca)
• Dutch: concretiseren (nl), verstoffelijken (nl)
• Finnish: havainnollistaa (fi), tehdä käsinkosketeltavaksi, esineellistää (fi)
• French: réifier (fr)
• German: verdinglichen (de), vergegenständlichen (de), reifizieren (de) (rare)
• Hebrew: המחיש (he) (himkhísh)
• Macedonian: опредметува (opredmetuva)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tingliggjøre

• Portuguese: coisificar (pt), reificar (pt)
• Russian: материализовать (ru) (materializovatʹ)
• Spanish: cosificar (es)
• Turkish: cisimleştirmek, maddeleştirmek, somutlaştırmak (tr)

See also

• conceptualize, hypostatize, personify

Anagrams

• fiery, firey