reification

First attested around 1846; a macaronic calque of German Verdinglichung, using -ification (“making”) for ver- + -lich + -ung, and Latin res (“thing”) for Ding (“thing”)

• enPR: rāəfəkāshən, IPA^(key): /ˌɹeɪəfəˈkeɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

reification (countable and uncountable, plural reifications)

1. The consideration of an abstract thing as if it were concrete, or of an inanimate object as if it were living.
2. The consideration of a human being as an impersonal object.
3. (programming) Process that makes a computable/addressable object out of a non-computable/addressable one.
4. (linguistics) The transformation of a natural-language statement into a form in which its actions and events are quantifiable variables.

• hypostatization
• objectification
• pathetic fallacy
• thingification

• dereification

• reify