Meaning

To give material form or substance to; to embody..

Definitions by Sense

1. To give material form or substance to; to embody.
2. To reify or hypostatize; to treat something that is fluid or abstract as a static entity without regard to nuance or change in character.
3. To endow with a consciousness, will, motivation and independent existence; to give life to; to hypostatize.
4. (linguistics) To transform into or treat syntactically as a noun; to make into or use as a substantive.

Example Sentences

With the problems of theory domain and theory focus out of the way, we are now ready to design and set down an integrating construct which will substantify, hold together and make opertional the theoretical framework.

Matthew tries to draw an analogy between the divine person and the divine nature: just as the infinite divine nature can be substantified in many divine persons, so the infinite divine person can substantify many created natures.

The First does not need two elements—one being to substantify (give substance to) its “essence”; the other to create or communicate “through which something else comes from it” (alFarabi, 1985, p. 93).

It is partly because almost inevitably a word, referring to a vague intimation of reality, tends to substantify and reify the insight with time.

I think that Aristotle may have noticed that pressing the question "When is Y a potential X?" seemed to "substantify" accidental states of bodies, and dimly saw that if one once began to chop up the realm of the indefinite into quasi-unities one would be well on the road to, as we would put it, a law-event framework of scientific explanation as opposed to a thing-nature framework."

In so far as the culturalist view of societies tries to be systematic, its limitations are obvious: to substantify a singular culture is to ignore its intrinsically problematic character (sometimes brought to light, however, by its reactions to other cultures or to the jolts of history);..

One concrete form of determinate presence occurs when you substantify something that has stayed the same over time and therefore you freeze it and you disregard its internal complexity, its interest, its interaction with yourself: its "flow" in a word.

having reduced the intensity and complexity of His life and Love to bring into existence the upper reaches of the spiritual universe (spiritual substances and atmospheres), then with diminished intensity the lower reaches (forces and motions), until through them He was able to breathe life into organic matter and finally substantify inanimate matter.

Word Forms

• substantifies
• substantifying
• substantified

Related Words

When Should You Use Substantify?

Use substantify when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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