Back-formation fromreification,calque fromGerman. Formed asLatinrēs(“thing”) +-ify (English suffix).
reify (third-person singular simple presentreifies,present participlereifying,simple past and past participlereified)
- (transitive) Toregard somethingabstract as if it were aconcretematerial thing.
- 2024 September, Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, page 349. "What I've always appreciated about this concept of coincidence ... is how itreifies our search for causality, our need to establish logical connections among disparate events."
to regard something abstract as if it were a concrete material thing
