Embodiment

How to spell embodiment

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce embodiment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does embodiment mean?

1. nounA tangible or visible expression of an idea, quality, or feeling; a person or thing that represents it perfectly.

Embodiment in a sentence

• The new headquarters was praised as the embodiment of the company values.

• She became the embodiment of calm during the long negotiation.

Where does embodiment come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on the verb 'embody', which English assembled in the mid 1500s from the prefix 'em-' (a form of 'en-', meaning 'to put into' or 'to make into') and the native Old English word 'body' (bodig, the physical frame of a person or thing). The prefix came in through French from the Latin 'in', so the literal idea is 'to put into a body', that is, to give an abstract thing a concrete physical form. The noun 'embodiment', adding the suffix '-ment' that turns verbs into nouns of action or result, followed in the early 1800s to name either the act of giving form or the thing in which a quality is made visible. Because the root is simply the everyday 'body', the spelling trap is not the stem but the joins: the single 'm' from 'em-' meeting the 'b' of body, and the unstressed 'i' that quietly survives from 'embody' before '-ment'.

How the word is built

• em- (variant of en-: to put in, to make into)
• body (the physical form)
• -ment (noun suffix)