Internalizing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of integrating external experiences or knowledge into one's personal understanding or emotional landscape
2. The process of making external thoughts and feelings a fundamental part of one's identity and behavior
3. The process of incorporating outside stimuli and experiences into one's internal beliefs and emotional responses

Etymology: The verb in question traces back to the root "internal," which itself stems from the Latin "internus," meaning "inward" or "within." This Latin term derives from "inter," meaning "between," combined with the suffix "-nus," indicating belonging or relating to. The sense of something being inward or inside was carried into English by the late Middle Ages, where it began to describe matters occurring within or inside a person or thing. The suffix "-ize," which turns adjectives or nouns into verbs, was borrowed into English from French and Latin during the 16th and 17th centuries. It allowed for the creation of verbs that mean "to make into" or "to subject to," so attaching "-ize" to "internal" formed a verb meaning "to make internal" or "to bring inside." The continuous form "-ing" simply denotes the ongoing action of this process. The idea behind this verb is closely tied to psychological and philosophical concepts that emerged prominently in the 19th and 20th centuries. It came to signify the process by which external ideas, values, or experiences become integrated within an individual's mind or character. This inward assimilation reflects a shift from a purely physical or spatial understanding of "internal" to a more abstract and mental one. Thus, the verb embodies a journey from the Latin word for "inside" through English morphological processes, aligning with modern psychological vocabulary to express how people absorb and personalize external influences.

Synonyms: incorporating, absorbing