Reify

//ˈɹiː.ə.faɪ// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To regard something abstract as if it were a concrete material thing. transitive

    "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."

  2. 2
    consider an abstract concept to be real wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
conceptualizeconcretizeembodyembodyincarnatematerialize

Example

More examples

"Could you make an example to reify your idea?"

Etymology

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

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.