Hypostasis
WordNet
noun
(1) (metaphysics) essential nature or underlying reality
(2) Any of the three persons of the Godhead constituting the Trinity especially the person of Christ in which divine and human natures are united
(3) The accumulation of blood in an organ
(4) The suppression of a gene by the effect of an unrelated gene
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From ecclesiastical hypostasis, from ‘sediment, foundation’ and later ‘substance, existence, essence’, from + ‘standing’.
Noun
- Inherent reality or substance.
- A person, specifically the person of Christ or of another part of the Trinity.
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- 1985: What did the God who hammered the universe together have to do with virtue, redemption, the strange doctrine of hypostasis? — Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked
- 2000: As Gregory of Nyssa had explained, the three hypostases of Father, Son, and Spirit were not objective facts but simply “terms that we use” to express the way in which the “unnameable and unspeakable” divine nature (ousia) adapts itself to the limitations of our human minds. — Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God (Harper 2004, p. 69)
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- a sedimentary deposit, especially in urine
- the effect of one gene preventing another from expressing