hypostatize

English

Alternative forms

Verb

hypostatize (third-person singular simple present hypostatizes, present participle hypostatizing, simple past and past participle hypostatized)

  1. (transitive) To make into, or regard as, a separate and distinct substance; to construe a contextually-subjective and complex abstraction, idea, or concept as a universal object without regard to nuance or change in character.
    • Cardozo Law Review, February 2005
      Progressives are wrong to hypostatize their belief in mankind's eternal advance, and to disavow anything that does not fit this preordained vision.
    • Thomas Henry Huxley, Scientific and Pseudo-scientific Realism, 1892
      On the other hand, there were a few who could see no objective reality in anything but individuals, and looked upon both species and genera as hypostatized universals.
  2. (transitive) To attribute actual or personal existence to.
    • Paul Evdokimov, Orthodoxy, 2011
      Roman Christianity is characterized by filial love and obedience expressed towards the fatherly authority hypostatized in the first Person of the Trinity....
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