Definition of "hypostasis" [hy•pos•ta•sis]

• Philosophy The substance, essence, or underlying reality. (noun)
• Christianity Any of the persons of the Trinity. (noun)
• Christianity The essential person of Jesus in which his human and divine natures are united. (noun)
• Something that has been hypostatized. (noun)
• A settling of solid particles in a fluid. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For this reason he understood the term hypostasis/substance not in the objective sense (of a reality present within us), but in the subjective sense, as an expression of an interior attitude, and so, naturally, he also had to understand the term argumentum as a disposition of the subject."
• "For the Fathers and for the theologians of the Middle Ages, it was clear that the Greek word hypostasis was to be rendered in Latin with the term substantia."
• "I wonder if Logos and Wisdom are more on the divine side of the ledger and if we can use the word hypostasis?"