incarnation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act of incarnating.
2. n. The condition of being incarnated.
3. n. Christianity The doctrine that the Son of God was conceived in the womb of Mary and that Jesus is true God and true man.
4. n. A bodily manifestation of a supernatural being.
5. n. One who is believed to personify a given abstract quality or idea.
6. n. A period of time passed in a given bodily form or condition: hopes for a better life in another incarnation.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of incarnating or clothing with flesh; the act of assuming flesh or a human body and the nature of man; the state of being incarnated. In theology the doctrine of the incarnation is the doctrine that the Divine Being has assumed human nature, or has dwelt on the earth in a human form. The doctrine has been held in both forms in the Christian church. The orthodox opinion is that God, in Jesus Christ his Son, not merely assumed a human body, and became subject to the limitations of the human flesh, but also that he assumed a proper human nature, and so is at once truly God and truly man. Hindu mythology represents Vishnu as having undergone certain avatars, descents, or incorporations or incarnations, but they are in part in other than human forms.
2. n. In surgery, the process whereby a wound heals, the affected part becoming filled with new flesh; granulation.
3. n. A representation in an incarnate form; a personification; a visible embodiment; a distinct exemplification in form or act.
4. n. The color of flesh; carnation.
5. n. In botany, the carnation.

Wiktionary

1. n. An incarnate being or form.
2. n. A living being embodying a deity or spirit.
3. n. An assumption of human form or nature.
4. n. A person or thing regarded as embodying or exhibiting some quality, idea, or the like
5. n. The act of incarnating.
6. n. The state of being incarnated.
7. n. obsolete A rosy or red colour; flesh colour; carnation.
8. n. medicine, obsolete The process of healing wounds and filling the part with new flesh; granulation.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of clothing with flesh, or the state of being so clothed; the act of taking, or being manifested in, a human body and nature.
2. n. (Theol.) The union of the second person of the Godhead with manhood in Christ.
3. n. An incarnate form; a personification; a manifestation; a reduction to apparent from; a striking exemplification in person or act.
4. n. obsolete A rosy or red color; flesh color; carnation.
5. n. (Med.) The process of healing wounds and filling the part with new flesh; granulation.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc.
2. n. (Christianity) the Christian doctrine of the union of God and man in the person of Jesus Christ
3. n. a new personification of a familiar idea
4. n. time passed in a particular bodily form