colonize
- to establish a colony in; settle: England colonized Australia.
- to form a colony of: to colonize laborers in a mining region.
- to form a colony: They went out to Australia to colonize.
- to settle in a colony.
Origin of colonize
Examples from the Web for colonise
Historical Examples of colonise
The country they were about to colonise had been recently overrun by Kafir hordes.
The Settler and the SavageR.M. Ballantyne
All enter it to hunt or make war, but none to settle or colonise.
The Wild HuntressMayne Reid
It had been often proposed to extirpate them and to colonise the country.
Ireland under the Tudors, Volume I (of II)Richard Bagwell
A Frenchman never discovers this, and therefore he cannot colonise.
DarielR. D. Blackmore
We could not colonise it, could not cultivate it, could not draw a revenue from it.
The English in the West IndiesJames Anthony Froude
colonize
colonise
- to send colonists to or establish a colony in (an area)
- to settle in (an area) as colonists
- (tr) to transform (a community) into a colony
- (of plants and animals) to become established in (a new environment)
Word Origin and History for colonise
colonize
1620s, "to settle with colonists," from stem of Latin colonus "tiller of the soil, farmer" (see colony); in sense "to make another place into a national dependency" without regard for settlement there by 1790s (e.g. in reference to French activity in Egypt or British work in India), and probably directly from colony.
No principle ought ever to be tolerated or acted upon, that does not proceed on the basis of India being considered as the temporary residence of a great British Establishment, for the good government of the country, upon steady and uniform principles, and of a large British factory, for the beneficial management of its trade, upon rules applicable to the state and manners of the country. [Henry Dundas, Chairman of the East-India Company, letter, April 2, 1800]
Related: Colonized; colonizing.