materialize
Americanverb (used without object)
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materializes,
present (3rd person singular)
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materialized,
past participle, past
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materializing
present participle
verb (used with object)
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materializes,
present (3rd person singular)
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materialized,
past participle, past
-
materializing
present participle
-
to give material form to; realize.
This year, she materialized her long-held ambition to go to law school.
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to invest with material attributes.
The writer materializes the more abstract ideas with metaphors, making the concepts easier to grasp.
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to make physically perceptible; cause (a spirit or the like) to appear in bodily form.
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to render materialistic.
verb
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(intr) to become fact; actually happen
our hopes never materialized
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to invest or become invested with a physical shape or form
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to cause (a spirit, as of a dead person) to appear in material form or (of a spirit) to appear in such form
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(intr) to take shape; become tangible
after hours of discussion, the project finally began to materialize
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physics to form (material particles) from energy, as in pair production
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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materializesimple
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materializessimple
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have materializedperfect
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has materializedperfect
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am materializingprogressive
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are materializingprogressive
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is materializingprogressive
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have been materializingperfect progressive
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has been materializingperfect progressive
Past
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materializedsimple
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had materializedperfect
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was materializingprogressive
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were materializingprogressive
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had been materializingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of materialize
Explanation
When you materialize, you show up suddenly after being missing, unborn, or unseen. Think of Harry Potter removing his invisibility cloak. He materializes. Living things aren't the only things that materialize. Car keys and reading glasses materialize when you've been searching for them for a while and then they are suddenly there on the table. If you're lucky an unexpected business deal will materialize. Like material, the word is related to the Latin word meaning "matter." Matter, is, of course, all the stuff of this earth, anything and everything that takes form. So to materialize is to take form.
Vocabulary lists containing materialize
100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know
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The Lightning Thief
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students, List 3
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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:
Global household wealth surged last year as expectations of bumper profits from artificial intelligence pushed equity prices to new highs, but that threatens an economically damaging correction should those profits fail to materialize.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
How hard he’s willing to push for that change will be an interesting story to follow should his speakership ever materialize.
From Slate ● Jul. 18, 2026
"For some of us, those threats have come very close, and all of us live with the knowledge that they may again materialize," Kagan, a liberal justice, told lawmakers in the House hearing.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
If any of those consensus predictions for the second quarter don’t materialize, then he recommends a series of strategies to exploit markets that are wrong-footed.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 10, 2026
And in the very same way the Spirit long ago became manifest in the Body of Christ, the first cabbage rose began to materialize on my tablecloth.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
Whether it gets made, he said, depends on whether the fund materializes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Regional governments are getting involved, with Bavaria committing up to 400 million euros to Proxima if federal funding also materializes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
Even if only a portion of that projected spending materializes, Arcuri said it would support his “long-held conviction that industry WFE could approach” about $300 billion by 2029.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
Even those whose families migrated here seeking a “better life” can speak to how uneven the American dream materializes across class, race and country of origin.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2026
Moments later, Keenan materializes out of the fog.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
Such lines of business have not yet materialized.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
The deal was supposed to help him secure a Trump pardon after a federal gun case, but the pardon never materialized, and Boosie is now trying to recover part of the money through arbitration.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
Baker meticulously traces these changes as they materialized in art, literature, and the ledgers and letters of Italian merchants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
But that job, which never materialized, was not going to be as a recruiter, she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
It materialized in the same spot then, and now it looks like it never left.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
Fed officials who voted for no rate hikes would need stronger U.S. jobs numbers and more elevated inflation to be convinced, but the economist doesn’t see such data materializing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
German headcount reduction targets don’t appear to be materializing, while a production shift to low-cost countries is unlikely to accelerate until 2030.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
He doesn’t see “imminent” danger of any of the three risks he flagged materializing, which is why he’s staying bullish and “tactically positive on risk assets” — for now.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
Airline mergers have been notoriously difficult to complete in recent years, and while it isn’t impossible, UBS analysts said the chances of a deal materializing “are probably remote.”
From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026
“Um... what about that materializing/ teleporting thing you guys do?”
From "The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan
Definitions 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.
