EMBODY (embodied)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: embodied   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does embody mean? 

• EMBODY (verb)
  The verb EMBODY has 3 senses:

1. represent in bodily form

2. represent, as of a character on stage

3. represent or express something abstract in tangible form

  Familiarity information: EMBODY used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EMBODY (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they embody    ... he / she / it embodies   
Past simple: embodied   
Past participle: embodied   
-ing form: embodying   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Represent in bodily form

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

body forth; embody; incarnate; substantiate

Context example:

The painting substantiates the feelings of the artist

Hypernyms (to "embody" is one way to...):

be (have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

embodiment (giving concrete form to an abstract concept)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Represent, as of a character on stage

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

be; embody; personify

Context example:

Derek Jacobi was Hamlet

Hypernyms (to "embody" is one way to...):

represent; stand for; symbolise; symbolize; typify (express indirectly by an image, form, or model; be a symbol)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "embody"):

body; personify (invest with or as with a body; give body to)

exemplify; represent (be characteristic of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Represent or express something abstract in tangible form

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Context example:

This painting embodies the feelings of the Romantic period

Hypernyms (to "embody" is one way to...):

represent (serve as a means of expressing something)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Derivation:

embodiment (a concrete representation of an otherwise nebulous concept)

 Context examples 

Technologies to induce the process of transcription of specific information embodied in the DNA into mRNA (messenger RNA), which is then translated into proteins.

(Expression Technologies for DNA and RNA, NCI Thesaurus)

The monotheistic religion of the Jews having its spiritual and ethical principles embodied chiefly in the Torah and in the Talmud.

(Judaism, NCI Thesaurus)

She was like Hope embodied, to me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But whether the sorrow was too vast to be embodied in music, or music too ethereal to uplift a mortal woe, he soon discovered that the Requiem was beyond him just at present.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Surely—I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express, the thought that rushed upon me—that embodied itself,—that, in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She is exactly the woman to do away every prejudice of such a man as the Admiral, for she he would describe, if indeed he has now delicacy of language enough to embody his own ideas.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He had received a good education, but, on succeeding early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed for any of the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged, and had satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering into the militia of his county, then embodied.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I only recollect that underneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness and freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the solemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would have turned the cover gently back, I cried: Oh no! oh no! and held her hand.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)