materialize

[ muh-teer-ee-uh-lahyz ]

verb (used without object)

, ma·te·ri·al·ized, ma·te·ri·al·iz·ing.

1. to come into perceptible existence; appear; become actual or real; be realized or carried out:

   Our plans never materialized.

   Synonyms: issue, rise, show, emerge

2. to assume material or bodily form; become corporeal:

   The ghost materialized before Hamlet.

verb (used with object)

, ma·te·ri·al·ized, ma·te·ri·al·iz·ing.

1. to give material form to; realize:

   This year, she materialized her long-held ambition to go to law school.

2. to invest with material attributes:

   The writer materializes the more abstract ideas with metaphors, making the concepts easier to grasp.

3. to make physically perceptible; cause (a spirit or the like) to appear in bodily form.
4. to render materialistic.

materialize

/ məˈtɪərɪəˌlaɪz /

verb

1. intr to become fact; actually happen

   our hopes never materialized

2. to invest or become invested with a physical shape or form
3. to cause (a spirit, as of a dead person) to appear in material form or (of a spirit) to appear in such form
4. intr to take shape; become tangible

   after hours of discussion, the project finally began to materialize

5. physics to form (material particles) from energy, as in pair production

Derived Forms

• maˌterialiˈzation, noun
• maˈterialˌizer, noun

Other Words From

• ma·te·ri·al·i·za·tion [m, uh, -teer-ee-, uh, -lahy-, zey, -sh, uh, n], noun
• ma·te·ri·al·iz·er noun
• re·ma·te·ri·al·ize verb rematerialized rematerializing
• un·ma·te·ri·al·ized adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of materialize¹

First recorded in 1700–10; material + -ize

Example Sentences

Not only are the run-ins taking longer to play out, but they’re also materializing earlier.

From FiveThirtyEight

Certainly, history tells us that plenty of storylines will materialize — or be lost forever — depending on which section of 60 games happens to be the 60 that get played this year.

From FiveThirtyEight

Others have suggested that magnetism materialized microseconds later, when protons formed.

From Quanta Magazine

The theory doesn’t address, for example, how “live” organisms and “evil” organisms managed to materialize from a primordial smoothie containing both right- and left-handed building blocks.

From Quanta Magazine

The hang-up partly explains why universal testing plans in skilled nursing facilities were slow to materialize.

From Voice of San Diego

This Oath Keeper was there for the protest, which had yet to materialize, and had a few friends joining him, he told me.

From The Daily Beast

Backup dancers materialize, sparking a torrent of eye-catching choreography.

From The Daily Beast

It took the beheading videos, and the deaths of two Americans, for that support to materialize.

From The Daily Beast

But the unity deal failed to materialize after the Palestinian Authority declined to pay the salaries of Hamas civil servants.

From The Daily Beast

Furthermore, by removing them from their post, you create an opportunity for insurgent black magic to materialize a car bomb.

From The Daily Beast

And as fast as they could carry a galley of type from the dump, another galley would just materialize there.

From Project Gutenberg

It now looked as if the drink of milk might materialize, but alas for human expectations!

From Project Gutenberg

What glorious rows of head-lines they must have seen as a last vision beautiful, never destined to materialize in printer's ink!

From Project Gutenberg

Some of these foreign elements, like the -ize of materialize or the -able of breakable, are even productive to-day.

From Project Gutenberg

Yet the hotel did not materialize, and the "view" neither fed nor warmed nor clothed the patient proprietors of the desolate spot.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• appear
• emerge
• happen
• occur
• realize
• take place
• turn up
• unfold