reify
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 7 August 2024
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 7, 2024 is:
reify • \RAY-uh-fye\ • verb
Reifying is about considering or representing something abstract as a material or concrete thing. If you reify a concept or idea you somehow give it definite content and form.
// The tense personal dynamic between the two musicians was reified by the dissonant yet captivating music they made together.
Examples:
“Evolutionary theory and experimental evidence reveals that race is not a natural category. We evolved alongside people who looked like us. And social categories we create and reify affect perceptions of who is them and who is us.” — Michael Muthukrishna, Time, 3 Feb. 2024
Did you know?
Reify is a word that attempts to provide a bridge between what is abstract and what is concrete. Fittingly, it comes from a word that is an ancestor of real—the Latin noun res, meaning "thing." Both reify and the related noun reification first appeared in English in the mid-19th century. Each word combines the Latin res with an English suffix (-fy and -fication, respectively) that comes from the Latin verb -ficare, meaning "to make." In general use, the words refer to the act of considering or presenting an abstract idea or concept in real or material terms, or of assessing something by use of a concrete example.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Marion Webster's Word of the Day for August 7th. |
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| 0:42.0 | Today's word is reify, also pronounced Reify, and spelled R-E-I-F-Y. |
| 0:48.0 | Ray-F-Y is a verb. |
| 0:50.0 | Rayifying is about considering or representing something abstract as a material or concrete thing. |
| 0:57.0 | If you reify a concept or idea, you somehow give it definite content and form. |
| 1:02.0 | Here's the word used in a sentence from time. |
| 1:05.0 | Evolutionary theory and experimental evidence reveals that race is not a natural category. |
| 1:12.0 | We evolved alongside people who looked like us, and social |
| 1:16.1 | categories we create and reify affect perceptions of who is them and who is us. |
| 1:22.3 | Reify is a who is them and who is us. |
| 1:23.0 | Rayify is a word that attempts to provide a bridge between what is abstract and what is concrete. |
| 1:31.0 | Fittingly, it comes from a word that is an ancestor of the word real, the Latin |
| 1:35.7 | noun race meaning thing. Both Rayify and the related noun |
| 1:40.1 | reification first appeared in English in the mid-19th century. |
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