categorize
Americanverb (used with object)
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categorizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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categorized,
past participle, past
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categorizing
present participle
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to arrange in categories or classes; classify.
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to describe by labeling or giving a name to; characterize.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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categoristnoun
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categorizationnoun
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decategorizationnoun
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subcategorizationnoun
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decategorizeverb (used with object)
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miscategorizeverb (used with object)
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recategorizeverb (used with object)
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miscategorizedadjective
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uncategorizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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categorizesimple
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categorizessimple
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have categorizedperfect
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has categorizedperfect
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am categorizingprogressive
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are categorizingprogressive
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is categorizingprogressive
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have been categorizingperfect progressive
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has been categorizingperfect progressive
Past
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categorizedsimple
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had categorizedperfect
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was categorizingprogressive
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were categorizingprogressive
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had been categorizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of categorize
First recorded in 1695–1705; categor(y) + -ize
Explanation
If you decided to categorize your wardrobe, you could sort it by type (pants or shirts), or by color. To categorize is to put something into a category. When you think of categorizing things, imagine taking a pile of marbles and putting them into little boxes by color. You are sorting things by how they are alike. Scientists categorize animals and plants by their properties. Doctors categorize illnesses by whether they are caused by viruses or bacteria. In movies, high school students are often categorized as jocks, popular kids, troublemakers, and geeks.
Vocabulary lists containing categorize
Vocabulary of the Common Core
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Content Summary G.2: Regionalization
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Content Summary 5.1: Causes of the Atlantic Revolutions
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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:
One person might describe feeling unusually cold, another might mention constant chills, while a clinician could categorize those experiences using a specific medical term.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 13, 2026
Particularly if you work across creative, intellectual or interdisciplinary worlds where people struggle to categorize what you actually “do.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Other related lawsuits are pending across the U.S., so some legal experts predict that the Supreme Court will make the ultimate call on how to regulate or at least categorize these platforms.
From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026
That includes the way scientists categorize species within Homo as well as Australopithecus and Paranthropus, all of which lived during the past 5 million years.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026
Though the technique is the exact opposite of most techniques of mysticism it probably is a mystical discipline, tending towards the experience of Immanence; but I can’t categorize any practice of the Handdarata with certainty.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
FlyDubai categorizes airports in terms of difficulty, pilots say, with Tel Aviv’s airport ranking as one of the easier destinations in the airline’s network and not requiring major experience.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
The study, published in Nature's Communications Earth & Environment, categorizes warming periods that occur ahead of and following MHWs.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026
Naylor categorizes about 30% of shark species as endangered, largely due to overfishing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2026
Wall Street categorizes metals as precious, base/industrial, and maybe “other” for the weird ones.
From Barron's ● Dec. 26, 2025
Sister Miriam Joseph* categorizes the relation of the trivial arts as follows: logic is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-known; grammar is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-symbolized; rhetoric is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-communicated.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
Between January 2023 and March of this year, Dollar General received over 29,000 customer complaints categorized internally as “did not honor marked price” in all 48 states it operates in, according to the lawsuit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2026
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center has said there’s virtually a 100% chance that the El Niño this season will be categorized as “very strong.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center said Thursday that there is virtually a 100% chance that the El Niño this season will be categorized as “very strong.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026
Tata Sons is categorized as an investment firm because it holds stakes in Tata subsidiaries and can inject capital into them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
Of all the black employees working in research at Langley in the early 1960s, there were still only five categorized as engineers and sixteen with the title of mathematician.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
The software also sends reminder emails and phone alerts to prompt people to keep up with categorizing transactions that are automatically pulled in or inputting new ones manually.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
“Historically, categorizing these emerging modes of transportation has presented tracking challenges,” a spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told The Times in May.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Agencies must submit “contingency plans” categorizing which employees are essential on a standardized worksheet.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
That's the lower limit of categorizing objects on the Torino Scale.
From Salon ● Mar. 3, 2025
Stopping before the narrow garage, he sniffed the fumes from Paradise with great sensory pleasure, the protruding hairs in his nostrils analyzing, cataloguing, categorizing, and classifying the distinct odors of hot dog, mustard, and lubricant.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
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