materialize

American  

[muh-teer-ee-uh-lahyz] / məˈtɪər i əˌlaɪz /

especially British, materialise

verb (used without object)

materialized, materializing

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.

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verb (used with object)

materialized, materializing

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 British  

/ 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

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Other Word Forms

• materialization
  noun
• materializer
  noun
• rematerialize
  verb
• unmaterialized
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of materialize

First recorded in 1700–10; material + -ize

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.

Example Sentences

Anonymous How Spirits Materialize From "The Revelations of a Spirit Medium"—a book out of existence now, since the plates and all copies were bought up by "spiritualists" and destroyed.

From The Lock and Key Library The most interesting stories of all nations: Real life by Hawthorne, Julian

Materialize your prospect; overcome every objection and connect their problems with your products.

From Business Correspondence by Anonymous

"Materialize the faintest spirit," I told him, "produce the lightest knock on that Fyfe table, and I'll give you a thousand dollars for the cause."

From The Best Short Stories of 1919 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story by O'Brien, Edward J. (Edward Joseph Harrington)

Related Words

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