verb
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To convert data or signals, such as images, text, or sound, to digital form.
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Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of digitize
Explanation
When you digitize something, you adapt it into a form that can be read by a computer. Publishers digitize books so they can be read on e-readers, tablets, and smartphones. You can digitize your parents' old photographs by scanning them and then uploading them. And since record companies started to digitize music, that's increasingly how people listen to it — while you may enjoy playing records on an old turntable, you probably listen to new music using an app on your phone or computer. Since 1953, this verb has been used to mean "convert into a sequence of digits," specifically digits a computer can read.
Vocabulary lists containing digitize
Computer Science and Technology - Introductory
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Computer Science and Technology - Middle School
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Computer Science and Technology - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Each specimen can be scanned in about 45 seconds, allowing researchers to digitize entire museum collections far more efficiently than would otherwise be possible.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 30, 2026
Specs can digitize a chess board, provide AR-guided training for shooting basketballs and even highlight the coolant reservoir under the hood of a car, according to videos and photos online.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 17, 2026
Its customers see a return on investment of more than 800% from its products, which help digitize physical infrastructure.
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
Greensill had grandiose ambitions, believing he could bring supply-chain finance to the masses using technology to digitize paper invoices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Their film collection was gone, save a few pieces that Molly had managed to digitize.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
They compared railway timetables and newspaper reports with observations of solar activity, accounts of auroras, and digitized measurements of Earth's magnetic field.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 21, 2026
Latto said that new shots for the documentary had been fully digitized, and he hoped this could help episodes of the show be restored in high definition.
From BBC ● Oct. 20, 2026
In an AI-adjusted version, everything is digitized to uncanny perfection.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
As part of this record, associated documents will be digitized and made available to ensure complete transparency.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
“Hazel Grace, could I, with my meager intellectual capacities, make up a letter from Peter Van Houten featuring phrases like ‘our triumphantly digitized contemporaneity’?”
From "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
He modernized the office during that time, digitizing millions of paper records and creating a portal to help residents search for assessment records.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
Palantir made a multibillion-dollar business out of this at the high end, digitizing the movement of information and how people operate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 1, 2026
Kaplan, who has a background in performance art and comedy, was in the process of digitizing her video work from graduate school but didn’t finish in time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 26, 2026
Tokenization refers to digitizing equities to trade through decentralized blockchains rather than a traditional exchange.
From Barron's ● Dec. 15, 2025
Molly had even expressed interest in finally getting around to digitizing their film collection as a pretext to learning how to edit video content for the internet, an interest that Clara had thankfully not questioned.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
