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Showing results for colorize. Search instead for colorizes.

colorize

American  
[kuhl-uh-rahyz] / ˈkʌl əˌraɪz /
especially British, colorise

verb (used with object)

colorized, colorizing
  1. to cause to appear in color; enhance with color, especially by computer.

    to colorize old black-and-white movies for television.


Other Word Forms


Etymology

Origin of colorize

First recorded in 1955–60; color + -ize


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:

Why did they colorize the blood on one victim’s face, but not any blood on the zombies?

From Slate ● Oct. 31, 2022

Then Jackson turned to the company Stereo D to colorize the film’s centerpiece clips.

From New York Times ● Dec. 16, 2018

Photos can also now colorize your older photos — even if they weren’t shot in color to begin with.

From The Verge ● May 8, 2018

Based on that, the computer could quickly colorize a black and white photograph with essentially true color.

From Time ● Feb. 24, 2013

But some lifeless specimens have slipped into the language, among them colorize, prioritize, and finalize, and they’re probably going to be around for a while.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner

He placed two panels of 25 images each side by side, half colorized and half black and white, alluding to religious diptychs of the past.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026

By the time he’d aired a colorized version of “Casablanca” on his channel, Turner set his sights on what many viewed as the ultimate sacrilege – pigmenting Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane.”

From Salon ● May 8, 2026

In “Memory Song,” for instance, Wolfe hauntingly colorized with silvery percussive accompaniment, marvelously melodic clarinet and cello lines and interruptions of chirping bird song, Monk’s singing of forgetting and football.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2023

The colorized statues also seem “new” in the sense that they have just been pressed or stamped by some modern industrial process, and thus lack the supposed authenticity of genuinely ancient things.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 11, 2022

“I like your room,” I said, going over to look at a colorized Frankenstein poster on the wall.

From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon

“It’s important to note that we never permanently altered the original black and whites,” he said, adding that he never thought colorizing those old movies was wrong.

From Salon ● May 8, 2026

If you’re colorizing your stucco, add some pigment to your cement paint, too.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 25, 2024

Stout: The poster artist has done a nice job colorizing the scene in a nostalgic, Kodachrome haze that perfectly captures the time period of the film.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 5, 2020

It’s akin, some say, to colorizing a vintage black-and-white film to make it more palatable to audiences not used to that medium.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2019

It was obsessed by being besmirched and colorizing the besmirching.

From An Apostate: Nawin of Thais by Steven (Steven David Justin) Sills

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