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
It includes, or at least invites, us—drawing us into the scene as our gaze continues upward into celestial immateriality, all courtesy of the materiality of paint.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 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
Perhaps to amplify the difference between analog and digital, the show’s savvy installation goes all-in on emphatic materiality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
To believe in Nature, in its self-existence, its self-subsistence, its self-action, its eternity, infinity, and materiality, and in that only, is Affirmative Atheism.*
From The Limits Of Atheism Or, Why should Sceptics be Outlaws? by George Jacob Holyoake
The arc of descent ends in materialities, and the arc of ascent ends in spiritualities.
From Some Answered Questions by `Abdu'l-Bahá
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 materialities were not invented in the interest of righteousness; that there is more righteousness in the world because of them than there, was before, is hardly demonstrable, I think.
From Mark Twain's Letters — Volume 5 (1901-1906) by Albert Bigelow Paine
"With the great, one's thoughts and manners easily become great; ... what this country longs for is personalities, grand persons, to counteract its materialities," says Emerson.
From Famous American Statesmen by Sarah Knowles Bolton
This very mental heaviness, holding him down to materialities, kept his contemplation of contingencies from becoming bewildering.
From Never-Fail Blake by Arthur Stringer
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
