Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Invested with bodily nature and form.
  • adjective Embodied in human form; personified.
  • adjective Incarnadine.
  • transitive verb To give bodily, especially human, form to.
  • transitive verb To personify.
  • transitive verb To realize in action or fact; actualize.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Invested with flesh; embodied in flesh.
  • Of a red color; flesh-colored.
  • Not carnate or in the flesh; divested of a body; disembodied.
  • To clothe with flesh; embody in flesh.
  • To form flesh; heal, as a wound, by granulation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Invested with flesh; embodied in a human nature and form; united with, or having, a human body.
  • adjective obsolete Flesh-colored; rosy; red.
  • intransitive verb rare To form flesh; to granulate, as a wound.
  • transitive verb To clothe with flesh; to embody in flesh; to invest, as spirits, ideals, etc., with a human from or nature.
  • adjective obsolete Not in the flesh; spiritual.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb obsolete, intransitive To incarn; to become covered with flesh, to heal over.
  • verb transitive To make carnal, to reduce the spiritual nature of.
  • verb transitive To embody in flesh, invest with a bodily, especially a human, form.
  • verb transitive To put into or represent in a concrete form, as an idea.
  • adjective Embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form; personified.
  • adjective obsolete Flesh-colored, crimson.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make concrete and real
  • adjective invested with a bodily form especially of a human body
  • adjective possessing or existing in bodily form
  • verb represent in bodily form

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Late Latin incarnātus, past participle of incarnāre, to make flesh : Latin in-, causative pref.; see in– + Latin carō, carn-, flesh; see sker- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the past participle stem of Latin incarnare ("make flesh"), from in- + caro ("flesh").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ecclesiastical Latin incarnatus, past participle of incarnari ("be made flesh"), from in- + caro ("flesh").

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Examples

  • Bill used the word incarnate when describing Obama.

    Bill: "Barack Obama Is The Man For This Job" 2009

  • So I brought out the dirhams and sat down to await his return; but he stayed away from me a third month, and I said, “Verily this young man is liberality in incarnate form.”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Although we might be tempted to see Spencer as evil incarnate, is there anything that might help us to understand him, or, at least to some extent, to empathize with him?

    A Conversation with Jodi Picoult 2003

  • Jesus is the word incarnate … Hence the word is Christ

    WordPress.com News 2009

  • Notice the Latin root incarnare which we find in the English word incarnate.

    Archive 2006-10-01 Oleg Kuzin 2006

  • Notice the Latin root incarnare which we find in the English word incarnate.

    When ingrown is incarné Oleg Kuzin 2006

  • First, some of the schoolmen have found no other respect wherefore the manhood of Christ can be said to be adored, (728) except this, that the flesh of Christ is adored by him who adores the word incarnate, even as the king’s clothes are adored by him who adores the king.

    The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) George Gillespie 1630

  • In this they were standing upon the high ground taken by Richard Baxter, an authority among the Puritans, who, denouncing the use of the slaves as beasts for their mere commodity, said, that their masters who "betray or destroy or neglect their souls are fitter to be called incarnate devils than Christians though they be no Christian whom they so abuse."

    The History of the Negro Church 1921

  • That the idea of incarnate deity should be found in pre-Christian Hindu thought is not so remarkable when we consider that it answers to the yearning of the human heart for union with God.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2: Assizes-Browne 1840-1916 1913

  • He argues that if the three Divine Persons form but one God all three have become incarnate, which is inadmissible.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 13: Revelation-Stock 1840-1916 1913

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