carbonize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to char (organic matter) until it forms carbon.
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to coat or enrich with carbon.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to turn or be turned into carbon as a result of heating, fossilization, chemical treatment, etc
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(tr) to enrich or coat (a substance) with carbon
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(intr) to react or unite with carbon
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of carbonize
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:
With the right equipment, we all have the ability to sous vide, slap chop, air fry, spiralize, carbonize and even slice our own bananas.
From Salon ● Jan. 29, 2014
He began to carbonize everything in nature that he could lay hands on.
From Edison, His Life and Inventions by Frank Lewis Dyer
Then coal and ore were arranged in heaps and in successive layers, as the charcoal-burner does with the wood which he wishes to carbonize.
From The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
Of course, the method employed to carbonize the materials is suspectible of variation, but the scientific principles involved are unchangeable, viz.:
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 by Various
When the dust thus produced begins to carbonize, the pressure and velocity are increased.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 by Various
Trying to unwind the carbonized rolls frequently reduced them to piles of ash, eventually prompting Italian authorities to stop the practice.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026
His winning edge was the carbonized bamboo filament he pioneered shortly after his initial 1879 breakthrough, providing the longevity needed to turn a novelty into a utility.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
Later, she drives through a part of the forest that burned the year before to see “mile upon mile of carbonized trees and denuded earth, a now-familiar scene of extinguished life.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 13, 2025
None of these substances were found outside the skull, in the volcanic ash in which the carbonized, skeletal remains were buried.
From Salon ● Mar. 4, 2025
They are usually preserved as branching or unbranching carbonized bodies, tree-like, leaf-like or rod-like in shape, their edges regularly toothed or denticulated.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 3 "Gordon, Lord George" to "Grasses" by Various
The work is constantly and uniformly exposed to a clean carbonizing atmosphere instead of partially spent carbonaceous solids which may give off very complex compounds of phosphorus, sulphur, carbon and nitrogen.
From The Working of Steel Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel by Fred H. (Fred Herbert) Colvin
The spent gases are vented to insure the greatest speed in carbonizing.
From The Working of Steel Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel by Fred H. (Fred Herbert) Colvin
For a thicker case the steel is packed in carbon materials of various kinds such as burnt leather scraps, charcoal, granulated bone or some of the many carbonizing compounds.
From The Working of Steel Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel by Fred H. (Fred Herbert) Colvin
This is horrible!" said Tom Hunter one evening, while rapidly carbonizing his wooden legs in the fireplace of the smoking-room; "nothing to do! nothing to look forward to! what a loathsome existence!
From From the Earth to the Moon; and, Round the Moon by Jules Verne
The Harvey process of making armor consists in taking an all-steel plate and carbonizing the face.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 by Various
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