incarnate

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. verb make concrete and real
  2. verb represent in bodily form
  3. adjective possessing or existing in bodily form; - Shakespeare

Etymology

First attested in 1395, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English incarnat(e) (“(of God or Christ) embodied in human form or flesh, incarnate; provided with new tissues, healed; (with devel, in curses) bloody”), borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin incarnātus, perfect passive participle of incarnor (“to be made flesh, become incarnate”) (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from in- + Latin carō (“flesh”, carn- in its oblique stem) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). By surface analysis, in- + Latin carn- + -ate.

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