---
title: "Reify"
description: "To reify is to make a thing out of something that is not a thing."
author: "Rahim Rasul"
type: "Defined term"
section: "Logos"
noted: "2025-10-21"
url: "https://iloveprocess.com/logos/reify/"
site: "I Love Process"
---

# Reify

_Latin rēs, thing + facere, to make_

## Definition

**Reify** (verb) means to make something abstract more concrete or real; to treat an idea, concept, or abstraction as if it has material or physical existence. The noun **reification** names the process of treating something abstract as material or concrete; the act of making something "thing-like."

## First-Principles Definition

**To reify is to make a thing out of something that is not a thing.** It takes an idea, a relation, or a process and handles it as an object with edges, weight, and a fixed shape. That can be a mistake, when something living and changing is treated as fixed and natural. It can also be a practice: a sanctuary, a gym, or a daily devotion gives an inner truth a body you can return to.

At its core, it asks:

- **What is being treated as a thing?** Name the idea or process that has been given the shape of an object.
- **Is it really fixed?** Check whether it is a process that only looks solid because it has a name.
- **What does the form make possible?** A concrete form can hold an idea so it can be practiced, or freeze it so it can no longer change.

## Etymology

- *rēs*: thing, matter
- *facere*: to make, to do

The word **reify** comes from the Latin *rēs* meaning "thing" or "matter" and the suffix *-ify*, "to make," which came through Old French *-ifier* and ultimately from the Latin *facere*, "to make" or "to do." Combined, they form "to make into a thing." *Reify* is a back-formation from *reification*, first attested around 1846 as a calque of the German *Verdinglichung*, with Latin *rēs* standing in for German *Ding*, "thing."