literalize

American  

[lit-er-uh-lahyz] / ˈlɪt ər əˌlaɪz /

especially British, literalise

verb (used with object)

literalized, literalizing

1. to make literal; interpret literally.

---

Other Word Forms

• literalization noun
• literalizer noun
• unliteralized adjective

Etymology

Origin of literalize

First recorded in 1820–30; literal + -ize

Example Sentences

The camera darts between the lovers’ angry, exhausted faces in a flurry of slamming edits and chin-severing closeups, as if to literalize the idea that something between them has broken.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 7, 2022

Is it too much to expect that a show about the difficulty of deciding between the light and the dark would, I dunno, literalize that conflict with a swoony bad influence?

From Slate • Oct. 25, 2018

Something about Knott froze in childhood, leaving a body of work marked by the child’s tendency to literalize imaginative schemes.

From The New Yorker • Mar. 27, 2017

Part of what makes the “Hunger Games” books so effective is that they literalize the familiar drama of adolescence, translating the emotional assaults, peer pressure, cliques and the tortured rest into warfare.

From New York Times • Mar. 22, 2012

Whether we believe in literal fire or not, we certainly ought to ask for a reason for the Master's failure to literalize the figurative word "fire."

From The Great Doctrines of the Bible by Evans, William