centralize
Americanverb (used with object)
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centralizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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centralized,
past participle, past
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centralizing
present participle
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to draw to or gather about a center.
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to bring under one control, especially in government.
to centralize budgeting in one agency.
verb (used without object)
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centralizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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centralized,
past participle, past
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centralizing
present participle
verb
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to draw or move (something) to or towards a centre
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to bring or come under central control, esp governmental control
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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centralizesimple
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centralizessimple
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have centralizedperfect
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has centralizedperfect
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am centralizingprogressive
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are centralizingprogressive
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is centralizingprogressive
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have been centralizingperfect progressive
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has been centralizingperfect progressive
Past
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centralizedsimple
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had centralizedperfect
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was centralizingprogressive
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were centralizingprogressive
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had been centralizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of centralize
Explanation
To centralize is to join together or concentrate in one main place. Instead of keeping coins and bills stashed all around your room, it might be wise to centralize your savings in your piggy bank. The word centralize is often used by companies, organizations, or governments when they reorganize or streamline their operations by focusing control in one main location or authority. A school district might centralize student records by putting them all in one location instead of keeping them at separate schools. A corporation may centralize its operations by putting all its managers in one main office, or headquarters, shutting down regional locations in order to cut costs.
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:
MS highlights China’s central buying agency and now Indonesia’s effort to centralize commodity exports.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
Last year, Allen came under fire after announcing sweeping cuts at about two dozen local affiliates that included laying off meteorologists, part of a reorganization to centralize forecasts at the Weather Channel in Atlanta.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
Palantir sells software to centralize, manage and analyze large amounts of data, helping government agencies and private companies derive insights from disparate databases.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
The move comes after Disney’s board and newly installed Chief Executive Josh D’Amaro unveiled a more streamlined management structure that sought to centralize its sprawling marketing operations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2026
The plan was accepted at most branches, but some of the more far-flung outposts felt that the plan was an effort by Jo-hannesburg to centralize control over the regions.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
The bill centralizes responsibility in the Governor’s Office for coordinating this care by creating a new care coordinator staff position.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 23, 2023
The biggest problem is that it centralizes Europeanness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2023
Fan has been working with Chinese institutions to set up more community care, rather than the current system, which centralizes care in major hospitals.
From Washington Post ● May 19, 2022
Web2 centralizes a bunch of cool stuff that was happening with Web1, but you are saying Web3 decentralizes it again.
From The Verge ● Apr. 12, 2022
If you hold your mind on some chosen object, you centralize your attention, just like the lens of the camera centralizes on a certain landscape.
From The Power of Concentration by Theron Q. Dumont
Despite providing millions of Americans with health insurance coverage for the first time, these programs had few centralized mechanisms for the kind of federal oversight that could prevent and catch fraud and abuse.
From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and interview Tuesday, Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg laid out an argument that the power to control AI shouldn’t be centralized among a few industry players.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
“Attempting to aggregate knowledge for the use of a centralized intelligence faces the same challenge.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Under the VAR system, officials sitting before a bank of monitors in a centralized control room review match footage in real time and advise the on-field referee of potential errors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
These differences stemmed ultimately from Eurasia’s much longer history of densely populated, economically specialized, politically centralized, interacting and competing societies dependent on food production.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
"Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it," Zuckerberg wrote, arguing that open models are a key part of a global AI ecosystem.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
And Kuper says Infantino has transformed the way the organization works by centralizing power.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2026
“It’s just centralizing all of the different parts of the road map that I’ve been trying to build for myself.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026
In centralizing their worlds, Morrison made serious explorations into the effects of personal and ancestral trauma.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
But in all branches of industry—and death is an industry, my young friend, make no mistake about that—one makes one’s money from operating in bulk, from buying in quantity, from centralizing one’s operations.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
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.
