reify
verbUK, US /ˈɹiː.ə.faɪ/
Etymology Back-formation from reification, calque from German. Formed as Latin rēs (“thing”) + -ify (English suffix).
1
To regard something abstract as if it were a concrete material thing.
- What I've always appreciated about this concept of coincidence ... is how it reifies our search for causality, our need to establish logical connections among disparate events.2024, Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, page 349:
- Synonyms
- concretize, objectify, picture, thingify
- Derived terms
- dereification, dereify, reifiable, reification, reifier, unreified
- Related terms
- conceptualize, hypostatize, personify
- Coordinate terms
- realize