weaponize

• weaponise (non-Oxford British English)

From weapon +‎ -ize. First use appears c. 1938. See cite below.

• IPA^(key): /ˈwɛpənaɪz/

weaponize (third-person singular simple present weaponizes, present participle weaponizing, simple past and past participle weaponized)

1. (transitive) To make into a weapon.

   Anything can be weaponized. A big enough rock, dropped from a sufficient height, is a very good weapon.

   • 1938, Scottish Geographical Magazine‎, volume 54, page 119:

     The writer has to an unusually high degree the gift of being able to coin a telling phrase, though I do not like the verb in the sentence "However unassailable their arguments may be they could not weaponize their strength."

   • 2017 October 18, Maya Kosoff, “The Russian troll farm that weaponized Facebook had American boots on the ground”, in Vanity Fair‎:

     Though most Russian efforts unveiled thus far seem to have been aimed at weaponizing the far right, the existence of BlackMattersUS indicates Russian agents were equally motivated to infiltrate the far left in order to amplify partisan divides that would simultaneously energize Trump’s base and disillusion Hillary’s.

   • 2018 August 2, Kara Swisher, “The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley”, in New York Times‎:

     They have weaponized social media. They have weaponized the First Amendment. They have weaponized civic discourse. And they have weaponized, most of all, politics.

   • 2025, January, John Bolton, quoted in: Cameron Joseph, John Bolton says he’s faced Trump’s retribution. He worries what Kash Patel might do.,, in: The Christian Science Monitor, January 27 2025

     f you’re against the weaponization of the Justice Department because you think it was weaponized against you, then you don’t make the situation worse by weaponizing it against your opponents.

2. (transitive) To make more effective as a weapon.

   To weaponize anthrax it is made more distributable, not more virulent.

• weaponizable

• beweapon
• weaponization