[f. prec.] trans.
1. To furnish or provide with a body; to embody.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., 245. We … holden now oure God to be bodili and to be Bodied in a Maner which no Cristen man kan at the ful comprehend.
1621. Bolton, Stat. Irel., 315 (an. 11 Eliz.). His head sundred from his bodie … and … bodied with a stake.
1634. Habington, Castara, 14. In some faire forme of clay Myself I’de bodied.
1656. Cowley, Davideis, II. Wks. 1710, I. 353.
| When Gabriel (no blest Spirit more kind or fair) | |
| Bodies and Cloaths himself with thicken’d Air. |
1858. Sears, Athan., III. x. 335. The state where every man’s real and dominant life is … bodied and robed according to its intrinsic quality.
† 2. To give body, consistence or strength to. lit. and fig. Obs.
1563. T. Gale, Antidot., II. 41. Boyle them … vntyll they bee well bodyed and incorporate together.
1657. May, Satyr. Puppy, 43. Bodying each word with active emphasis.
† 3. To draw up or form (troops, etc.) into a body, to form in a body. (Also intr. for refl.) Obs.
1651. Proc. Parliament, No. 80. 1215. The Earl of Sunderland … hath bodied above 500 of his tenants, & other people under his jurisdiction. Ibid., No. 104. 1603. But we could not hear of any bodying considerably, so that we could onely disperse severall parties.
1653. Gauden, Hierasp., 14. Bodying into small Corporations.
4. To body forth: a. to represent to oneself as in bodily form; to give mental shape to.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., V. i. 14. Imagination bodies forth the forms of things Vnknowne.
1820. Scott, Monast., xiii. The beau-ideal which Dame Glendinning had been bodying forth in her imagination.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., III. iv. § 16. The power of bodying forth or realizing what is described in language, is one of the meanings of Conception.
b. To put (an idea) into outward shape or tangible form, to exhibit in outward reality.
1800–24. Campbell, Chaucer & Windsor, 1. Long shalt thou flourish, Windsor! bodying forth Chivalric times.
1835. Lytton, Rienzi, IV. i. 191. Wonderfully did her beauty … body forth the brightest vision that ever floated before the eyes of Tasso.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, iv. (1858), 277. The spiritual will always body itself forth in the temporal history of men.
c. To represent; to symbolize, typify.
1846. Keble, Lyra Innoc. (1873), 54. One bodies forth a Virgin form Holding aloft a Cross of might.
1879. Church, Spenser, iv. (1883), 90. The allegory bodies forth the trials which beset the life of man.
1883. Spectator, No. 2874. 958. Both as egotist and as patriot M. de Lesseps bodies forth the age.
d. To indicate, betoken.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xvii. A sharp, lively, conceited expression of countenance, seemed to body forth a vain hair-brained coxcomb.
5. To body out: to give body or a body to; to fill out (a skeleton), to clothe (a mind) with bodily form.
1839. Bailey, Festus, xxii. (1848), 285. If thus they bodied out The immortal mind.
1893. Academy, 20 Oct. To body-out the meagre accounts of Thucydides.
