commercialize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to make commercial in character, methods, or spirit.
-
to emphasize the profitable aspects of, especially at the expense of quality.
to commercialize one's artistic talent.
-
to offer for sale; make available as a commodity.
verb
-
to make commercial in aim, methods, or character
-
to exploit for profit, esp at the expense of quality
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
commercializationnoun
-
commercializernoun
-
decommercializationnoun
-
overcommercializationnoun
-
decommercializeverb (used with object)
-
overcommercializeverb (used with object)
-
quasi-commercializedadjective
-
uncommercializedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
commercializesimple
-
commercializessimple
-
have commercializedperfect
-
has commercializedperfect
-
am commercializingprogressive
-
are commercializingprogressive
-
is commercializingprogressive
-
have been commercializingperfect progressive
-
has been commercializingperfect progressive
Past
-
commercializedsimple
-
had commercializedperfect
-
was commercializingprogressive
-
were commercializingprogressive
-
had been commercializingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of commercialize
Explanation
To commercialize something is to make money from it. If you're a painter, you might commercialize your art by printing greeting cards and selling them online. The verb commercialize comes from the adjective commercial, "done for financial profit," and its root, the Latin commercium, "trade." When you take an activity or an organization and manage it so that it results in a profit, you commercialize it. Delivering baked goods to your neighbors out of a sense of generosity is one thing — when you start charging them two dollars per cookie, you've commercialized your hobby.
Vocabulary lists containing commercialize
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:
The 33rd US president later wrote that it was wrong to "commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency".
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
Takeda will be granted exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize the new drugs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
It’s tempting to portray competition in the quantum space as a mad dash, akin to the high-stakes sprints to commercialize cloud compute and artificial intelligence.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
While AstraZeneca is late to move into the obesity space, it aims to differentiate its portfolio through combinations of different drugs and by looking to commercialize its assets beyond the U.S., he adds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
With three partners, Cottrell established a company to commercialize the process.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Words such as love, trust, freedom, responsibility and choice have been deformed by a market logic that commercializes and commodifies all relations of exchange.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2022
“That’s very impressive,” says Stephen Dobson, a medical entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and the founder of MosquitoMate, a company that commercializes Wolbachia as a tool to control the Asian tiger mosquito.
From Nature ● Jul. 16, 2019
Cloudera, a Hortonworks competitor that also commercializes Hadoop, has amassed more than $1 billion in funding from investors is the furthest along in the experiment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2016
I can also see how some people are offended when someone commercializes and capitalizes on the cultural heritage of another group.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 21, 2014
The man who discovers means to help his fellow man, does a good act, but is the man with the dollars in front of his eyes who commercializes the discovery and invention.
From Think A Book for To-day by Hunter, Col. Wm. C.
Over the past year or so, fringe ideas have been commercialized for the mainstream.
From Salon ● Jun. 15, 2026
Previous attempts to commercialize this approach to chip-making have failed, the company said, adding that its offering is “the world’s first and only commercialized wafer-scale processor.”
From MarketWatch ● May 11, 2026
Their theory is that Gilead should have commercialized TAF earlier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 5, 2026
The deal gives Neurocrine access to this very asset, which has since been commercialized as Vykat XR, the first drug treating insatiable hunger in patients living with Prader-Willi syndrome.
From Barron's ● Apr. 6, 2026
When it comes to money, the question isn’t whether human tissues and tissue research will be commercialized.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
AstraZeneca and Ionis are jointly developing and commercializing Wainua in the U.S., while the former has exclusive rest of world commercialization and development rights.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
In 2025, researchers published around 25,000 papers about 3-D printing of batteries and their components, yet only a handful of startups have even proposed commercializing the technology.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
The current valuation “makes an investment in Cerebras risky, as it is in very early stages of commercializing its product and it is unclear how much of the market they can capture,” Luria said.
From MarketWatch ● May 15, 2026
Disclosures: Roxhed is a founder and shareholder of Capitainer AB, a company commercializing the blood collection devices used in this study.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 15, 2026
“Netscape helped to guarantee that these open protocols would not be proprietary by commercializing them for the public,” said Andreessen.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
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.
