noun
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the state or quality of being physical or material
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substance; matter
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of materiality
From the Medieval Latin word māteriālitās, dating back to 1520–30. See material, -ity
Explanation
Materiality is the quality of a physical substance that you can actually feel. Seeing a fluffy beanbag chair online is one thing, but in-person, you can appreciate its materiality. Materiality is a complicated word with several definitions. One way to think of it is as "the quality of consisting of matter." Architects talk about the materiality of actual buildings constructed with materials (rather than images rendered on a computer). When anthropologists discuss the materiality of artifacts, they're talking about their physical properties. In law, on the other hand, materiality means "relevance" or "importance" — in other words, how much something matters.
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:
"What we're seeing is that brutal materiality is still important," says Alexander RE Taylor, senior lecturer in communications at the University of Exeter.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
The artist’s eponymous 2025 sculpture, crowned with an array of Bantu knots, ties the entire show together, joining materiality, traditional cultural identity, and the outward-looking nature of the exhibition in a single work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Alys and Helaena fulfill their truest purpose outside the confines of mind and materiality, using the heart tree of Harrenhal's godswood.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2024
And, literally, across the street, you have Basquiat doing what he is doing, and it’s the opposite: It’s naming, materiality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2024
The thing, the moving cause, the modus operandi can no more be comprehended and reduced to materiality than the spirit that animates our bodies.
From Sages and Heroes of the American Revolution by L. Carroll Judson
There is something about an empty room, empty except of memories, but containing nothing besides, no materialities, no certainties as to the future, which is intimidating to one who stops and thinks.
From By the Light of the Soul A Novel by Harold M. Brett
Abner accepted his environment; after all, he might force the conversation to soar far above the mere materialities.
From Under the Skylights by Henry Blake Fuller
His clothes were a necessary envelope, to which he paid not the slightest attention, for his eyes looked too high among the clouds to concern themselves with such materialities.
From A Daughter of Eve by Honoré de Balzac
The arc of descent ends in materialities, and the arc of ascent ends in spiritualities.
From Some Answered Questions by `Abdu'l-Bahá
And napery, silver, iridescent glass, all the materialities, were well worthy of so pretty a floral setting.
From Captivating Mary Carstairs by Raymond Moreau Crosby
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.
