incarnation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English incarnacioun, also incarnacion,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French incarnacion,^[4][5][6] in Anglo-Norman incarnaciun, recorded from 1113–19,^[5][7] from Late Latin incarnātiō (“the act of being made flesh”),^[4][5][8][9] a word of the Church writers (Hilary, Jerome, Ambrose),^[5][4] the noun of action from incarnō (“to make flesh; to be made flesh”),^[4][10][8] formed from in- (“in”) and carō (“flesh”), genitive carnis.^[4][10][11] The Latin noun also gave encarnación and incarnazione.^[4] Old English had glossed the idea as inflæscnes and inlichomung.^[4] The word is related to incarnate and carnal.^[10][11][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The taking of human flesh by God in Christ: 1297, in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle,^[5] about 1300 in Etymonline and Barnhart.^[4][11] The Middle English Dictionary also records its use for the Christian era, as in the year of the incarnation.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The theological sense was the earliest and is still the main one.^[5][10] From before 1475 incarnation was a light pink or a pigment of that colour, now archaic,^[5][9][10] and since about 1543 the growth of new flesh in a healing wound,^[5][9] which Johnson (1755) gave as "the state of breeding flesh".^[12] From 1646 the word was used of any embodiment in flesh,^[5] and since the 1740s concretely, for a body or form in which a spirit or deity lives.^[5][13][4] In the 19th century it came to mean a person or thing that embodies a quality, the incarnation of something (1833; of a thing, 1821 in Shelley),^[5] and it is also used for one of the successive forms or versions of something.^[14][9]

Timeline

• 1297 – the Incarnation of Christ.^[5]
• before 1475 – light pink, flesh colour (now archaic).^[5][9]
• c. 1543 – the growth of new flesh in a wound.^[5]
• 1615 – figuratively, embodiment in a definite form.^[5]
• 1646 – embodiment in flesh in general.^[5]
• 1742 – a body or form in which a spirit is incarnated.^[13][4]
• 1821 – a thing that typifies a quality, in Shelley.^[5]
• 1833 – a person who embodies a quality.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The embodiment of a deity or spirit in an earthly, especially human, form.^[14][15][6]
2. the Incarnation: in Christian theology, the union of God and humanity in Jesus.^[14][15][9]
3. A person or thing that typifies a quality or idea: He was the incarnation of patience.^[14][15][5]
4. One of a series of forms or states; a version: In an earlier incarnation the theatre was a warehouse.^[14][9]
5. The act of incarnating, or the state of being incarnate.^[14][15]
6. (rare) The growth of new flesh in a healing wound.^[9][5][12]
7. (archaic) Flesh colour; a light rosy pink.^[9][5]

Word family

• incarnational

Related words

• carnal
• incarnate
• reincarnate
• reincarnation
• carnation
• carnage
• carnivore

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins