1. Of ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’: Having a body, invested with a body.
α. 1652. Benlowes, Theoph., VIII. lxxxix. 120. O, could embody’d Soules Sinnes bane view well.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (ed. 3), II. 56. Spirits embodied have a Converse with, and receive Intelligence from the Spirits unembodied.
1783. Johnson, Lett. (1788), II. cccxviii. 304. External locality has great effects, at least upon all embodied beings.
1839. Bailey, Festus, ii. (1848), 12. A spirit, or embodied blast of air.
1870. Max Müller, Sc. Relig. (1873), 365. As men, we only know of embodied spirits.
1880. ‘E. Kirke,’ Garfield, 27. The embodied spirit of treason and slavery.
β. 1691–8. Norris, Pract. Disc., 243. Words that cannot be … understood by an imbodyed Understanding.
176[?]. Wesley, Serm., Wks. 1811, IX. 148. An imbodied spirit cannot form one thought, but by the mediation of its bodily organs.
2. Of principles, ideas, etc.: a. Expressed or exhibited in material or concrete form; b. incorporated into a system.
1663. J. Spencer, Prodigies (1665), 137. There is a great deal of imbodied Art in Nature.
1799. Mackintosh, Stud. Law Nat., Wks. 1846, I. 364. The embodied experience of mankind.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), V. 37. The individual follows reason, and the city law, which is embodied reason, either derived from the Gods or from the legislator.
3. Formed or combined into a militant body or company; arrayed, marshalled.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 573. Such imbodied force, as, nam’d with these, Could merit more than that small infantry.
1715. Pope, Iliad, II. 540. Not less their number than the embodied cranes.
1798. Malthus, Popul. (1817), II. 11. The number of embodied troops.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), I. iv. 179. The advocates of a simpler ritual had by no means assumed the shape of an embodied faction.
