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Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of embodiment
Explanation
The embodiment of something gives concrete form to an abstract idea. A flag is the embodiment of a country. When you talk about embodiment, you're talking about giving a form to ideas that are usually not physical: like love, hate, fear, justice, etc. A gavel is the embodiment of justice; a wedding ring can be the embodiment of love. The word body in embodiment is a clue to its meaning: this is a word for giving a body to things that usually don't have one.
Vocabulary lists containing embodiment
The Crucible
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The Awakening
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The Boys in the Boat
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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 taco stand where Lopez and Diaz worked together was in some ways the embodiment of the American dream.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
The findings build on Levy’s stereotype embodiment theory.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 21, 2026
Tasha Graham, dressed head to toe in Knicks clothing, is the embodiment of New York's passion for its basketball team battling to win the NBA Finals and end a five-decade drought.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Though the Johnny Cage figure is a walking embodiment of cheesy Hollywood tropes, his presence seems not to embarrass the film into abandoning its schlocky ways.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom.
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
Like Homer’s, Mr. Armitage’s gods are not distant abstractions but present projections of human failings, embodiments of forces we struggle to name even after 40 centuries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
"They're kind of 3D embodiments of the drawings, but they're produced independently."
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2025
There was a sense that it was kind of like no parents, no rules, and the companies were not structured like banks and law firms and these other embodiments of traditional corporate authority.
From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2023
You’ve seen them compete, these living breathing embodiments of strength and skill and athleticism.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2022
The nature or essence of any individual would seem to imply in its very concept a transcendental relation of specific identity with all other actual and possible individual embodiments of this essence.
From Ontology or the Theory of Being by Coffey, Peter
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.
