discarnate

[dis-kahr-nit, -neyt]

adjective

1. without a physical body; incorporeal.

Other Word Forms

• discarnation noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of discarnate¹

1655–65; dis ¹ + -carnate, as in incarnate

Example Sentences

“At this moment, we are on the air, and on the air we do not have any physical body. When you’re on the telephone or on radio or on TV, you don’t have a physical body. … You’re a discarnate being. You have a very different relation to the world around you. … It has deprived people really of their identity.”

From Slate

In his fall 1971 convocation address at the University of Alberta, McLuhan told students that in an electronic world, people become “discarnate data, a sort of disembodied spirit coexisting and functioning simultaneously in diverse locations.”

From Slate

Two years ago, he announced $1 million in grants from his Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies for research "into contact and communication with post-mortem or discarnate consciousness."

From Salon

“If we see a shadow going through one wall and through another, we don’t know for sure if it was a discarnate human spirit or E.T.,” he said.

From New York Times

Lying on his back, staring at a ceiling he could not see, Ben felt discarnate, a voiceless body buried accidentally, smelling the top of the coffin for the first time.

From Literature

Related Words

• abstract 
• abstruse 
• esoteric 
• mystical 
• philosophical 
• spiritual 
• supernatural 
• theoretical