disincarnate means lacking a physical form.
Why “disincarnate” is a great word
Disincarnate signifies a state lacking physical or bodily form, or the act of divesting such form. Formed within English by derivation from the prefix dis- (expressing reversal or removal) and the adjective or verb incarnate (from Latin incarnare, 'to make flesh'). Unlike incorporeal, which describes an inherent lack of body, or disembodied, which often implies a lingering spirit parted from its former shell, disincarnate suggests the deliberate reversal of incarnation—the quiet violence of an act undone. It is the scent lingering in an empty room, the hollow in a pillow where a head no longer rests, the voice on an answering machine that speaks with no mouth—the eerie lightness of something once made real slipping back into the dark, leaving only the faintest imprint on the air where a world once touched.
Etymology
From dis- + incarnate.
adj
- lacking a physical form.e.g.“The Goddess again comes to his rescue and pieces him together, but she cannot find his phallus, for disincarnate specters on the astral do not possess the physical organs of generation.” — 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 235:
verb
- To divest of body; to make immaterial.
- To die, in context of subsequently existing outside the body (for example, as a soul or spirit).
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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