realize

See also: realizē

English

Alternative forms

realise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹi.ə.laɪz/
(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪə.laɪz/
Audio (US) (file)
Hyphenation: re‧al‧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
Synonyms: accomplish, actualize, materialize

Coordinate term: reify
- 1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica:
  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.
(transitive) To become aware of (a fact or situation, especially of something that has been true for a long time).
- 2002, The Flaming Lips, Do You Realize??
  Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46:
  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.
(transitive) To cause to seem real to other people.
- 1881, Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides Translated into English:
  Many coincidences […] soon begin to appear in them [Greek inscriptions] which realize ancient history to us.
(transitive) To sense vividly or strongly; to make one's own in thought or experience.
- 1859, Ferna Vale, Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds:
  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.
- 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, section II:
  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.
- 1996, Alan Brown, Audrey Hepburn's Neck:
  Drawings appear fully realized in his mind's eye at a furious rate, before he even picks up his pencil.
(transitive, business) To acquire as an actual possession; to obtain as the result of plans and efforts; to gain; to get
- 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 1, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 38:
  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
(transitive, business, finance) To convert any kind of property into money, especially property representing investments, such as shares, bonds, etc.
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.
- 1855, Washington Irving, “ The Great Mississippi Bubble.”, in Wolfert’s Roost and Other Papers, , New York, N.Y.: G P Putnam & Co., , →OCLC, page 174:
  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.
(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.
The southern /v/ is realized as the voiced approximant [ʋ].
- 2016, Martin Maiden, The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 297:
  Many (probably most) 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 (but not always) corresponds to […]

Conjugation

Conjugation of realize

infinitive	(to) realize
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	realize	realized
2nd-person singular	realize, realizest^†	realized, realizedst^†
3rd-person singular	realizes, realizeth^†	realized
plural	realize	realized

subjunctive	realize	realized

imperative	realize	—

participles	realizing	realized