epitomize
Americanverb (used with object)
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epitomizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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epitomized,
past participle, past
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epitomizing
present participle
-
to contain or represent in small compass; serve as a typical example of; typify.
This meadow epitomizes the beauty of the whole area.
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to make an epitome of.
to epitomize an argument.
verb
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to be a personification of; typify
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to make an epitome of
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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epitomizesimple
-
epitomizessimple
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have epitomizedperfect
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has epitomizedperfect
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am epitomizingprogressive
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are epitomizingprogressive
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is epitomizingprogressive
-
have been epitomizingperfect progressive
-
has been epitomizingperfect progressive
Past
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epitomizedsimple
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had epitomizedperfect
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was epitomizingprogressive
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were epitomizingprogressive
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had been epitomizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of epitomize
Explanation
If you epitomize something, you’re a perfect example of that thing. If you never get nervous when playing basketball and can always make that last-second shot, your teammates might say you epitomize mental toughness. A person can epitomize something — usually an abstract quality, like grace or greed — but epitomize can apply to other things as well. A popular band might epitomize the spirit of the new decade, which means it has all the main characteristics associated with the era's music, like long folksy beards, pretty harmonies, and earnest lyrics. A frustrating situation at work involving careless coworkers might make you say that they epitomize everything that’s wrong with your job.
Vocabulary lists containing epitomize
The Color of Water
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Into Thin Air
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Harriet Tubman
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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:
The two entrepreneurs came to epitomize a certain swagger of the first hype cycle roughly a decade ago when Silicon Valley was betting it could replace a world of human-driven cars with robots.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 22, 2026
“They lost so much in the fires yet they’re still doing so much for their community. They really epitomize the spirit that we felt was rising in L.A.,”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 2, 2025
“Water projects came to epitomize the pork barrel; they were the oil can that lubricated the nation’s legislative machinery.”
From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2024
The glamour of the town’s new honorary residents appears at stark odds with Mr. Richards’s neighborhood of Caia Park, a long deprived corner of Wrexham that came to epitomize the town’s decline.
From New York Times ● Apr. 29, 2023
The time-tested strategy of using those who epitomize moral virtue as symbols in racial justice campaigns is far more difficult to employ in efforts to reform the criminal justice system.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
The 6th Street Bridge in Los Angeles epitomizes the problem with rampant metal theft.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Since its excellence needs no explaining, here are a few others that are as worthy of our appreciation, including a heartwarming duet that epitomizes Parton’s universal appeal.
From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2026
The fund, founded in 1929, epitomizes Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle’s values —own a balanced mix of stocks and bonds, and keep your costs down.
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
The reliance on NAVs reported by other managers epitomizes black-box financial reporting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 16, 2026
In analogy with this, is it not true that every thinking man and woman in the course of his or her development, epitomizes the history of human thought?
From Socialism: Positive and Negative by Robert Rives La Monte
The huge advancements in generative AI, epitomized by the release of ChatGPT, shocked him into action.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Ruby Cochrane and Olga Nikolaeva epitomized the mindset Mira Costa brought to Saturday afternoon’s Southern Section Division 1 girls’ beach volleyball championship match at Long Beach City College.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2026
Some longevity influencers attract rubbernecking for their quixotic quests to live forever, epitomized by venture capitalist Bryan Johnson’s vampiric infusions of his teenage son’s blood plasma.
From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2026
Many imagined that Jackson’s march and Education Secretary William Bennett’s Stanford speech the following year epitomized America’s culture wars.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026
Fairly or unfairly, to her derogators Pittman epitomized all that was reprehensible about Dick Bass’s popularization of the Seven Summits and the ensuing debasement of the world’s highest mountain.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
Times restaurant critic Bill Addison as “deftly engineered chaos,” ultimately epitomizing the “L.A. dreamer, the go-getter.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2026
A deal epitomizing the new era of resource nationalism was unveiled Wednesday when Glencore agreed to sell a stake in two African copper mines to a consortium backed by the U.S. government.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 4, 2026
This idea — of Earth's lifeforms as epitomizing a collective, life-cultivating system — has a long history: the ancient Greeks called Earth "Gaia," the mother of all life.
From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2022
The hitting is far more to blame than the pitching for their struggles, and if you’re looking for a pair of players epitomizing the offensive disappointment, it’s Frazier and Winker.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 19, 2022
Everything was different, and we saw it through the eyes of youth and romance as epitomizing the storied tropics.
From Gold by Stewart Edward White
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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.
