contemporize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to place in or regard as belonging to the same age or time.
-
to give a modern or contemporary character or setting to; update.
The new production of Romeo and Juliet contemporizes it as the love of two modern teenagers in a Chicago high school.
verb (used without object)
verb
Etymology
Origin of contemporize
1640–50; < Late Latin contempor- (stem of contemporāre to be at the same time), equivalent to con- con- + tempor- (stem of tempus time) + -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.
“This gives us the opportunity to reimagine and contemporize coverage.”
From Seattle Times • May 11, 2023
How can you contemporize a work whose very conceit — its whole plot, its central perspective — will land like a well-meaning but ignorant cousin’s comment in a conscientious cultural conversation?
From New York Times • Nov. 4, 2021
OK, but they weren’t singing 21st-century pop ballads back then, and one of the movie’s biggest problems is its almost desperate determination to contemporize everything for a young audience.
From Washington Times • Dec. 20, 2017
To contemporize a midcentury home that he found in San Diego, architect John Ike expanded on the modernist ideal of integrating nature into the space and deviated from the style’s love of straight lines.
From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 29, 2016
Such estates seem to defy Time's tooth, and by conditions which take hold of the indestructible earth seem to contemporize their fee-simples with eternity.
From Pierre; or The Ambiguities by Melville, Herman
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.
