reify
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of reify
First recorded in 1850–55; from Latin rē(s) “thing” + -ify
Explanation
When you reify something abstract, you make it real. You might reify your affection for Italy by hanging posters of the Italian Riviera on your wall and cooking Italian food every night. Reify, which is three syllables — ree-uh-fye — comes from the Latin word res, which means "thing," with the suffix -fy, meaning "make into" or "produce," which you know from verbs like "horrify" and "falsify." You may already know the Latin word res, too. From your study of literature, you've probably encountered the phrase in medias res, "in the middle of things," used to describe a story that begins in the middle of the action.
Vocabulary lists containing reify
Power Suffix: -fy
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-fy
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ify
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The brain latches on or compares itself to others, starting a negative cycle of thinking that can reify itself.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 1, 2024
They ask critical questions about colleges as sites that perpetuate classism, places that not only reify hierarchies of value but rely on it as part of their mythology.
From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2021
We can use the mythology of the frontier, he writes, “to reify our nostalgia for a falsely idealized past,” or we can use it as a way of “imagining and speaking truth.”
From New York Times ● Dec. 21, 2017
And that, in turn, their worth was meaningless without a man or a corporation to reify it.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 22, 2016
Markets reify this contribution, turning life, energy, doubts, time, or whatever else-in particular language-into the commodity embodied in the product.
From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai
We play by a code of conduct, that nebulous thing we have reified as “international law.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 8, 2025
Each count, Mr Teltumbde argues, "did not merely record caste, but reified and hardened it".
From BBC ● Nov. 12, 2025
We see this push for closure reified across American culture.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2024
Pitsilionis was born in Greece; he credits his commitment to hospitality in part to his homeland’s culture, reified working in his family’s restaurant after they moved to Kenai, Alaska.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 4, 2023
Previous stylistic characteristics- spontaneity is only the most evident-are reified and framed in new settings together with the interpretation.
From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai
There is a difference, albeit a subtle one, between erasing one class of people while reifying another, and mocking the entire project of balancing genuine, and competing interests.
From Slate ● Dec. 5, 2022
Based off the conventions and what exists in the world in terms of cyborgian narratives, I wanted to contribute something that isn’t reifying those projects.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 29, 2022
A Netflix purchase of Landmark, however, would have gone some way toward appeasing the cultural gatekeepers of the film world by reifying the movie theater as a temple of cinephilia.
From Slate ● Apr. 21, 2018
Increased awareness of automated surveillance, in other words, is most effective at demystifying the systems doing the watching, not reifying their wisdom and authority.
From New York Times ● Jan. 9, 2018
For as long as human activity was relatively homogeneous, there was no need for political delegation or for reifying political goals into rules or organizations.
From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
