incarnate

From Middle English incarnat, incarnate, from Ecclesiastical Latin incarnātus, past participle of incarnārī (“be made flesh”), from in- + Latin carō (“flesh”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈkɑːɹ.nɪt/, /ɪnˈkɑːɹ.neɪt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈkɑːneɪt/, /ɪnˈkɑːnət/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

incarnate (not comparable)

1. (traditionally postpositive, now frequently prepositive) Embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form; personified.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Here shalt thou sit incarnate.

   • 1751-1753, John Jortin, Remarks on Ecclesiastical History

     He […] represents the emperor and his wife as two devils incarnate, sent into the world for the destruction of mankind.

2. (obsolete) Flesh-colored, crimson.
   • 1721, John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials; Relating Chiefly to Religion, and the Reformation of It, and the Emergencies of the Church of England, under King Henry VIII. King Edward VI. and Queen Mary the First. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] John Wyat, […], →OCLC:

     Yards of Turkey silk incarnate.

From the past participle stem of Latin incarnāre (“make flesh”), from in- + carō (“flesh”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈkɑːɹ.nɪt/, /ɪnˈkɑːɹ.neɪt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɪnkɑːneɪt/, /ɪnˈkɑːneɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

incarnate (third-person singular simple present incarnates, present participle incarnating, simple past and past participle incarnated)

1. (transitive) To embody in flesh, invest with a bodily, especially a human, form.
   • 1931, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter 2, in The Whisperer in Darkness:

     For one thing, we virtually decided that these morbidities and the hellish Himalayan Mi-Go were one and the same order of incarnated nightmare.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 218:

     Not all of the soul can incarnate into a body; the part which is left above is the psyche.

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To incarn; to become covered with flesh, to heal over.
   • 1760, Laurence Sterne, The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Penguin, published 2003, page 83:

     My uncle Toby’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much—he told him, 'twas just beginning to incarnate.

3. (transitive) To make carnal; to reduce the spiritual nature of.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     This essence to incarnate and imbrute, / That to the height of deity aspired.

4. (transitive, figurative) To put into or represent in a concrete form, as an idea.
   • 2005, Paulo Freire, Donaldo Macedo, Literacy: Reading the Word and the World, →ISBN, page 20:

     Truly, that special world presented itself to me as the arena of my perceptual activity and therefore as the world of my first reading. The texts, the words, the letters of that context were incarnated in a series of things, objects, and signs.

   • 2006, Constantin V. Boundas, Deleuze and Philosophy, →ISBN, page 160:

     Responding to this in confusion, perhaps you construct an Idea, a structure, a multiplicity, a system of multiple, nonlocalisable ideal connections which is then incarnated. It is incarnated in real (not ideal) relations and actual (physical) terms, each of which exists in relation to each other, reciprocally determining each other.

   • 2013, B.E. Babich, Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science, Van Gogh’s Eyes, and God, →ISBN:

     The two are fused together in a single act and single product, precisely as an idea incarnated in an image, i.e., the expression of an embodied-spirit, grasped all at once as a meaning shining through a manifold of images and held as one in the unity of human consciousness which is simultaneously intellectual and sensible.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:incarnate.

• carnal
• excarnate
• excarnation
• incarnation
• reincarnate
• reincarnation

From in- +‎ carnate.

incarnate (not comparable)

1. (rare) Not in the flesh; spiritual.
   • 1748, [Samuel Richardson], Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson;  […], →OCLC:

     I fear nothing […] that devil carnate or incarnate can fairly do.

• Nectarian, cane train, in a canter, nectarian

incarnate

1. inflection of incarnare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

incarnate f pl

1. feminine plural of incarnato

• antraceni, canterina, inarcante, incantare, incanterà

incarnāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of incarnō