• (RP) IPA: /ɪnˈkɑːneɪt/, /ɪnˈkɑːnət/

incarnate (not comparable)

1. (postpositive) Embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form; personified.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 3”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     Here shalt thou sit incarnate.

   • He represents the emperor and his wife as two devils incarnate, sent into the world for the destruction of mankind.

2. (obsolete) Flesh-colored, crimson.

• German: fleischgeworden, inkarnat
• Russian: во плоти́

• (RP) IPA: /ˈɪnkɑːneɪt/, /ɪnˈkɑːneɪt/

incarnate (incarnates, present participle incarnating; past and past participle incarnated)

1. (transitive) To embody in flesh, invest with a bodily, especially a human, form.
   • 1931, H. P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness, chapter 2:

     For one thing, we virtually decided that these morbidities and the hellish Himalayan Mi-Go were one and the same order of incarnated nightmare.

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To incarn; to become covered with flesh, to heal over.
   • 1760: My uncle Toby’s wound was near well, and as soon as the surgeon recovered his surprize, and could get leave to say as much—he told him, 'twas just beginning to incarnate — Laurence Sterne, The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Penguin 2003, p. 83)
3. (transitive) To make carnal; to reduce the spiritual nature of.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 8”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     This essence to incarnate and imbrute, / That to the height of deity aspired.

4. (transitive, figurative) To put into or represent in a concrete form, as an idea.

• Portuguese: encarnar
• Russian: воплоща́ть

• Italian: concretizzare, materializzare
• Portuguese: encarnar
• Russian: осуществля́ть

• carnal
• incarnation
• reincarnate
• reincarnation

incarnate (not comparable)

1. Not in the flesh; spiritual.

   • I fear nothing […] that devil carnate or incarnate can fairly do.