commercialize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make commercial in character, methods, or spirit.
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to emphasize the profitable aspects of, especially at the expense of quality.
to commercialize one's artistic talent.
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to offer for sale; make available as a commodity.
verb
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to make commercial in aim, methods, or character
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to exploit for profit, esp at the expense of quality
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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commercializationnoun
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commercializernoun
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decommercializationnoun
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overcommercializationnoun
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decommercializeverb (used with object)
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overcommercializeverb (used with object)
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quasi-commercializedadjective
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uncommercializedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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commercializesimple
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commercializessimple
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have commercializedperfect
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has commercializedperfect
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am commercializingprogressive
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are commercializingprogressive
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is commercializingprogressive
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have been commercializingperfect progressive
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has been commercializingperfect progressive
Past
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commercializedsimple
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had commercializedperfect
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was commercializingprogressive
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were commercializingprogressive
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had been commercializingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of commercialize
Explanation
To commercialize something is to make money from it. If you're a painter, you might commercialize your art by printing greeting cards and selling them online. The verb commercialize comes from the adjective commercial, "done for financial profit," and its root, the Latin commercium, "trade." When you take an activity or an organization and manage it so that it results in a profit, you commercialize it. Delivering baked goods to your neighbors out of a sense of generosity is one thing — when you start charging them two dollars per cookie, you've commercialized your hobby.
Vocabulary lists containing commercialize
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:
AstraZeneca will pay Sino Biopharmaceutical $200 million upfront for exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize the drug outside China.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
The 33rd US president later wrote that it was wrong to "commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency".
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
The funding will support the push to commercialize cognitive robots and humanoids at scale, as well as expand the company’s AI-powered robotics platform, Neura said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
Quantum computing remains a speculative investment, with Quantinuum and peers yet to broadly commercialize technology.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
With three partners, Cottrell established a company to commercialize the process.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Words such as love, trust, freedom, responsibility and choice have been deformed by a market logic that commercializes and commodifies all relations of exchange.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2022
The court said that José Luis Calama has decided to lead a judicial commission that will travel to Israel to “take testimony from the CEO of the company that commercializes the Pegasus program.”
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 7, 2022
“That’s very impressive,” says Stephen Dobson, a medical entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and the founder of MosquitoMate, a company that commercializes Wolbachia as a tool to control the Asian tiger mosquito.
From Nature ● Jul. 16, 2019
Yet, only two open-source companies have gone public: Red Hat Inc., RHT -0.12 % which commercializes the ubiquitous Linux operating system, and Hortonworks Inc., which commercializes the data storage and analysis software known as Hadoop.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2016
The man who discovers means to help his fellowman, does a good act, but it is the man with the dollars in front of his eyes that commercializes the discovery and invention.
From Evening Round Up More Good Stuff Like Pep by Hunter, William Crosbie
Over the past year or so, fringe ideas have been commercialized for the mainstream.
From Salon ● Jun. 15, 2026
The clock is also ticking for Replimune, which lacks a commercialized product.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
Previous attempts to commercialize this approach to chip-making have failed, the company said, adding that its offering is “the world’s first and only commercialized wafer-scale processor.”
From MarketWatch ● May 11, 2026
Once ubiquitous across mom-and-pop shops, handmade signage is now nearly nonexistent in an increasingly commercialized city, but thanks to the pair it continues to live on in Jackson Heights, Queens.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 22, 2026
When it comes to money, the question isn’t whether human tissues and tissue research will be commercialized.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
In 2025, researchers published around 25,000 papers about 3-D printing of batteries and their components, yet only a handful of startups have even proposed commercializing the technology.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
The current valuation “makes an investment in Cerebras risky, as it is in very early stages of commercializing its product and it is unclear how much of the market they can capture,” Luria said.
From MarketWatch ● May 15, 2026
Like its pure-play peers, Pasqal is in the early stages of commercializing its systems and has yet to generate a profit.
From Barron's ● Apr. 8, 2026
However, commercializing such technologies has been challenging, due to fiscal and regulatory hurdles in the healthcare industry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 17, 2026
“Netscape helped to guarantee that these open protocols would not be proprietary by commercializing them for the public,” said Andreessen.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
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.
