Dictionary

hypostatize en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /haɪˈpɒstətaɪz/

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ὑποστατίζω (hupostatízō, “I hypostatize”).

Meanings

1. (transitive) To render 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.
   • 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. 1887 April, Thomas Henry Huxley, “Scientific and Pseudo-scientific Realism”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 30:
   • Positivism, restricted to a programme of investigating observable particulars, cannot grasp the ‘self-formative process of man as process’. It hypostatizes the abstract concept of fact or datum. 1980, David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 172:
2. (transitive) To attribute actual or personal existence to.
   • Progressives are wrong to hypostatize their belief in mankind's eternal advance, and to disavow anything that does not fit this preordained vision. 2005 February, Cardozo Law Review:
   • Roman Christianity is characterized by filial love and obedience expressed towards the fatherly authority hypostatized in the first Person of the Trinity […] 2011, Paul Evdokimov, Orthodoxy:

Forms

Deriveds

hypostatization

Relateds

reify · hypostasis · embody · personify