incarnation
nounUK /ˌɪŋ.kɑːˈneɪ.ʃən/ · US /ˌɪŋ.kɑɹˈneɪ.ʃən/
Etymology From Middle English incarnacion, borrowed from Old French incarnacion, from Medieval Latin, Ecclesiastical Latin incarnatio, from Late Latin incarnari (“to be made flesh”).
9 senses
- 1An incarnate being or form.
- 2A version or iteration (of something).
- 3A living being embodying a deity or spirit.
- 4An assumption of human form or nature.
- 5A person or thing regarded as embodying or exhibiting…
- 6The act of incarnating.
- 7The state of being incarnated.
- 8A rosy or red colour; flesh (the colour); carnation.
- 9The process of healing wounds and filling the part with…
1
An incarnate being or form.
- She is a new incarnation of some of the illustrious dead.1815, Francis Jeffrey, Wordsworth's White Doe (review)
- She had cast off the terror of the leaping flame, the cold power of judgment that was even now being done, and the wise sadness of the tombs - cast them off and put them behind her, like the white shroud she wore, and now stood out the incarnation of lovely tempting womanhood, made more perfect - and in a way more spiritual - than ever woman was before.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
2 more examples
- Robespierre, the very incarnation of lustful and deadly Vengeance, stands silently by..1922, Baroness Orczy, The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel:
- The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:
2
A version or iteration (of something).
- It seems that they existed in some sort of previous incarnation of our universe, and use abstract terms to describe their existence, such as "feeding on concepts". They prepared for some sort of ascension, but then the Pattern came, which they describe at first as an all-consuming emptiness, elaborating by saying that anything that passed into it was torn asunder, subjected to a set of principles and order that grinds things down to nothing, in a process of which entropy is just one part.2019 January 7, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: Pattern Screamers” (6:12 from the start), in The Exploring Series, archived from the original on 11 Jan 2023:
3
A living being embodying a deity or spirit.
4
An assumption of human form or nature.
5
A person or thing regarded as embodying or exhibiting some quality, idea, or the like.
- The leading dancer is the incarnation of grace.
6
The act of incarnating.
7
The state of being incarnated.
8
Obsolete A rosy or red colour; flesh (the colour); carnation.
- Derived terms
- disincarnation, incarnational
- Related terms
- carnal, incarnate, reincarnate, reincarnation