incarnate means embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form; personified. It carries an Arena rating of 1500, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, incarnate ranks #1,386 of 25,264 for Qualifying, #2,309 of 14,431 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #2,350 of 14,448 for Most Incisive Words, #2,382 of 14,414 for Most Elegant Words.
incarnate is pronounced /ɪnˈkɑːɹ.nɪt/.
Why “incarnate” is a great word
Embodied in flesh, especially in human form, or to give concrete, bodily form to an abstract quality. Its lineage descends from Ecclesiastical Latin incarnātus, the past participle of incarnor ('to be made flesh'), from Latin in- ('in, into') + carō, carn- ('flesh') + the verbal suffix -ō, first attested in English in 1395. Unlike “embody,” which can represent an idea in any tangible form, or “personify,” which merely lends a human face to an abstraction, incarnate insists on the actual, visceral taking of flesh—warm, breathing, and mortal. It is the divine made vulnerable and palpable, the artist’s vision given weight and breath and a beating heart, the moment a principle steps from thought and walks, solid and undeniable, among us. It is the terrible, hopeful notion that the intangible must become meat to truly matter.
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.
adj
- Embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form; personified.“Here shalt thou sit incarnate.”
- Flesh-colored; crimson.“Yards of Turkey silk incarnate.”
- Not in the flesh; spiritual.“I fear nothing […] that devil carnate or incarnate can fairly do.”
verb
- To embody in flesh; to invest with a bodily, especially a human, form.“For one thing, we virtually decided that these morbidities and the hellish Himalayan Mi-Go were one and the same order of incarnated nightmare.”
- To gain full existence (bodily or otherwise).“SCP-3125 incarnated the following winter.”
- To incarn; to become covered with flesh; to heal over.“My uncle Toby’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much—he told him, 'twas just beginning to incarnate.”
- To make carnal; to reduce the spiritual nature of.“This essence to incarnate and imbrute, / That to the height of deity aspired.”
- To put into or represent in a concrete form, as an idea.“Truly, that special world presented itself to me as the arena of my perceptual activity and therefore as the world of my first reading. The texts, the words, the letters of that context were incarnated in a series of things, objects, and signs.”
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