Word definition: realize

Etimology


Attested since 1610, from French réaliser, from Middle French real (“actual”), from Old French reel, from Latin reālis, from rēs (“thing, event, deed, fact”); as if real +‎ -ize.

verb


realize (third-person singular simple present realizes, present participle realizing, simple past and past participle realized)

(slightly formal, transitive) To make real; to convert from the imaginary or fictitious into reality; to bring into real existence

(transitive) To become aware of (a fact or situation, especially of something that has been true for a long time).

(transitive) To cause to seem real to other people.

(transitive) To sense vividly or strongly; to make one's own in thought or experience.

(transitive, business) To acquire as an actual possession; to obtain as the result of plans and efforts; to gain; to get

(transitive, business, finance) To convert any kind of property into money, especially property representing investments, such as shares, bonds, etc.

(transitive, business, obsolete) To convert into real property; to make real estate of.

(transitive, linguistics) To turn an abstract linguistic object into actual language, especially said of a phoneme's conversion into speech sound.

Examples


Synonyms: accomplish, actualize, materialize

Coordinate term: reify

We realize what Archimedes had only in hypothesis, weighting a single grain against the globe of earth.

The objectives of the project were never fully realized.

Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?

No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.

He realized that he had left his umbrella on the train.

The defendant desperately yelled at her young daughter, frantic to make her realize what she had done.

Many coincidences […] soon begin to appear in them [Greek inscriptions] which realize ancient history to us.

Over the mind of the tourist, visiting the Old World for the first time,—countries where have transpired thrilling events recorded in history, what an immensity of thought and feeling sweeps! It was thus with Natalie; she could not realize that she was treading in the footsteps of royalty, who living in long past days, had held sway over this land, had looked upon this land of "merrie England" as their home.

That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

Drawings appear fully realized in his mind's eye at a furious rate, before he even picks up his pencil.

Knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by diligent thrift realise a good estate.

to realize large profits from a speculation

Profits from the investment can be realized at any time by selling the shares.

By realizing the company's assets, the liquidator was able to return most of the shareholders’ investments.

Wary men took the alarm, and began to realize, a word now first brought into use to express the conversion of ideal property into something real.

The southern /v/ is realized as the voiced approximant [ʋ].

Many speakers realize it as [ø] or [œ] in other contexts as well. In Midi French, schwa is realized more frequently than in northern varieties, including in word-final position, where it generally corresponds to […]

Related words


related terms

real

realism

realistic

reality

Data provided by Wiktionary