Make Your Point: IMMANENT

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pronounce IMMANENT:

IM uh nunt

connect this word to others:

The beautiful word immanent, meaning "dwelling within, dwelling all throughout," has two homophones: eminent, meaning "standing out: dignified, successful, or remarkable;" and imminent, meaning "looming: soon to happen, and causing stress."

We can make more sense of the spellings and meanings of these three homophones—immanent, eminent, and imminent—if we define them quite simply, using their prefixes and root words. Something immanent dwells within, something eminent juts out, and something imminent juts in.

Next, as we focus on immanent, let's gather some synonyms.

Immanent things are
1. omnipresent,
2. p__v__ive ("present and widespread"),
3. ubi____ous ("everywhere all the time"),
4. in___ent ("naturally, permanently there"), and
5. in____sic ("naturally belonging within").

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

"Immanent" traces back through French to a Latin word that literally means "to remain within, to dwell within."

Since the 1500s, we've used "immanent" in English to describe things, like God and love, that are widespread, existing all throughout a place, often the entire world.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Adjective: "Is goodness immanent in humanity?"

Other forms:

The adverb is "immanently."

And if you need a noun, you can pick between "immanence" and "immanency."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, scholarly word "immanent" when you want to strike a tone that's religious or metaphysical as you describe something that seems to pervade a specific idea or place—or the whole universe.

You might talk about an immanent god or deity, or about its immanent presence.

Or, you might say that some quality, characteristic, or other thing is immanent in a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. For example, here's W. T. Stace: "Every mathematician is acquainted with the contradictions immanent in our ideas of infinity."

examples:

"Lead, Kindly Light is the story of a new conviction... the conviction of an immanent and transcendent God who cannot be explained away."
— Staff, Time, 18 July 1949

"[Toni Morrison's] artful invocation of that ghost [in Beloved] remains incomparable but also widely relevant to the history of African Americans in this country. The spiritual practices that kidnapped Africans carried with them to the United States affirmed the immanent presence of their ancestors."
— Ron Charles, Washington Post, 10 December 2019

has this page helped you understand "immanent"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

study it:

Explain the meaning of "immanent" without saying "indwelling" or "suffused throughout."

try it out:

Let's get metaphysical! Have you ever, personally, felt the immanent presence of a god or of a person who had died? If so, what was it like?

If not, talk about a quality or characteristic that's immanent in a place that you love: one that you can just feel, all around you, whenever you're there.

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is Subject Line Matching!

Try matching each capitalized term below with the email subject line that I used to introduce it. For an extra challenge, try recalling what each term means and how the subject line connects to it.

Try these today:

FARRAGO: _____________
MADELEINE EFFECT: _____________
MCGUFFIN: _____________
SHIVAREE: _____________
TORSCHLUSSPANIK: _____________

also works with Dunkaroos and Hot Pockets
Look at this stuff. Isn't it wheat?
perhaps even hoedownier than a hootenanny
that FOMO/YOLO/oh-no feeling
We gots to get that sandwich

To see the correct answers, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. Opposites of IMMANENT include

A. RARE, ABSENT, and EXTRINSIC.
B. KIND, SELFLESS, and ALTRUISTIC.
C. NOBLE, HAREBRAINED, and QUIXOTIC.

2. According to a writer for Time, Dahl Friedrich's landscape paintings, full of "pulsating white moons, flat dark seas and clawing oaks," conveyed "an immanence _____."

A. in mood
B. of God in nature
C. to balance light with darkness

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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