incarnation

English

Etymology

From Middle English incarnacion, borrowed from Old French incarnacion, from Medieval Latin, Ecclesiastical Latin incarnatio, from Late Latin incarnari (“to be made flesh”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌɪŋ.kɑːˈneɪ.ʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɪŋ.kɑɹˈneɪ.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

incarnation (countable and uncountable, plural incarnations)

1. An incarnate being or form.
   • 1815, Francis Jeffrey, Wordsworth's White Doe (review)

     She is a new incarnation of some of the illustrious dead.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1922, Baroness Orczy, The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel:

     Robespierre, the very incarnation of lustful and deadly Vengeance, stands silently by..

   • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:

     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.

2. A version or iteration (of something).
   • 2019 January 7, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: Pattern Screamers” (6:12 from the start), in The Exploring Series‎, archived from the original on 11 January 2023:

     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.

3. A living being embodying a deity or spirit.

   Synonym: avatar

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.

   Synonyms: embodiment, instantiation, realization

6. The act of incarnating.
7. The state of being incarnated.
8. (obsolete) A rosy or red colour; flesh (the colour); carnation.
9. (medicine, obsolete) The process of healing wounds and filling the part with new flesh; granulation.

Related terms

• carnal
• incarnate
• reincarnate
• reincarnation

Translations

Further reading

• “incarnation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “incarnation”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

French

French Wikipedia has an article on:

incarnation

Wikipedia ^fr

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French incarnation, from Old French incarnacion, borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin incarnātiōnem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.kaʁ.na.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

incarnation f (plural incarnations)

1. embodiment (entity typifying an abstraction)

Related terms

• incarner

Descendants

• → Turkish: enkarnasyon

Further reading

• “incarnation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French incarnacion, borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin incarnātiō, incarnātiōnem.

Noun

incarnation f (plural incarnations)

1. (Christianity) Incarnation. Specifically, the incarnation of God in the form of Jesus Christ.

Descendants

• French: incarnation

References

• incarnation on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)