reify

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 2, 2008 is: reify • \RAY-uh-fye\ • verb : to regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing : to give definite content and form to (something abstract) Examples: "He describes the phenomenal popularity of Edwin Markham's proletarian poem 'The Man With the Hoe,' which reified labor's feelings of injustice." (Neal Gabler, The Washington Post, February 18, 1996) Did you know? "Reify" is a word that attempts to provide a bridge between what is abstract and what is real. Fittingly, it derives from a word that is an ancestor to "real" -- the Latin noun "res," meaning "thing." Both "reify" and the related noun "reification" first appeared in English in the mid-19th century, though "reification" is a few years older and some dictionaries consider "reify" to be a back-formation of the noun. In general use, the words refer to the act of considering or presenting an abstract idea in real or material terms, or of judging something by a concrete example. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.