substance

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Physical matter; material.

   “Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.”

   “His wasted hands were stretched out, and worked with a quick and convulsive motion, as if catching some small substances which kept eluding their grasp;...”

   “Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Physical matter; material.
3. (countable, uncountable)The essential part of anything; the most vital part.

   “Heroic virtue did his actions guide, / And he the substance, not the appearance, chose.”

   “1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth This edition is the same in substance with the Latin.”

   “It is insolent in words, in manner; but in substance it is not only insulting, but alarming.”

4. (countable, uncountable)Substantiality; solidity; firmness.

   “Some textile fabrics have little substance.”

5. (countable, uncountable)Material possessions; estate; property; resources.

   “a man of substance”

   “And there wasted his substance with riotous living.”

   “Thy substance, valued at the highest rate, / Cannot amount unto a hundred marks.”

   “And as we have waſted our Strength and vital Subſtance in this profuſe manner, ſo we have ſhamefully miſapplied it to Ends at leaſt very different from thoſe for which we undertook the War, and often to effect others which after a Peace we may ſeverely repent.”

6. (countable, uncountable)Drugs (illegal narcotics)

   “substance abuse”

7. (countable, uncountable)Ousia, essence; underlying reality or hypostasis in the philosophical sense.

verb

1. (rare, transitive)To give substance to; to make real or substantial.

   “If life were nothing but what gets phrased and substanced, the world might as well be rolled up and laid away again in darkness.”

   “The calm ruminating / Reverie, substancing / Intellect into emotion, / Is shelter enough for love / Unhumiliated by faith.”