customize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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customizationnoun
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customizernoun
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customizableadjective
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noncustomizedadjective
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semicustomizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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customizesimple
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customizessimple
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have customizedperfect
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has customizedperfect
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am customizingprogressive
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are customizingprogressive
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is customizingprogressive
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have been customizingperfect progressive
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has been customizingperfect progressive
Past
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customizedsimple
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had customizedperfect
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was customizingprogressive
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were customizingprogressive
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had been customizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of customize
Explanation
To customize something is to make it exactly how you want it. If you put stickers all over your plain old notebook, you customize it. If you see the word customer in customize, you’re onto something — to customize is to make something to a customer’s specifications. When clothes are customized — or tailored — they’re made with you in mind, specifically. A customized suit should fit perfectly. If you customize your car, it could be bright pink with eyelashes on the headlights. Or not.
Vocabulary lists containing customize
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:
That means developers can download, customize and host the model locally.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
Like most of China's offerings, it costs less and uses source code that programmers can customize.
From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026
The goal of Tinker is to allow a developer sitting at a laptop to customize and train large industrial AI models without having to worry about the supercomputing infrastructure underneath.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Don’t skip dessert, either, and if you’re a coffee drinker, order the Lao coffee, served with condensed milk and a sugar cube on the side so you can customize the sweetness to your liking.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2026
“The default setting is typically ‘help,’ but you can customize as the situation allows.”
From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles
Whenever she’s on the hunt for a new pair, her first stop is the Rose Bowl Flea Market where she finds Allyn Scura, a local vendor, who customizes vintage frames.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2025
This new testing method further advances precision medicine, which is a patient care approach that customizes treatments specifically for a person's genetics, environment and lifestyle.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 18, 2024
Kestenbaum uses Ikea for playrooms a lot, but customizes the pieces so the room doesn’t read Ikea.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 31, 2023
When you beat the cat ad level, for example, you’ll see a message about how Twitter customizes your experience on the platform and points to where you can turn personalized ads on or off.
From The Verge ● May 11, 2022
The plant sometimes customizes guns with scratches and blemishes by painting American flags on them, she said.
From Washington Post
That’s a private customized investment approach designed to reduce losses during market downturns by combining investments in stocks with hedging tools such as options, futures and/or short-selling.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
Their customized workflow allowed them to observe protein interactions directly inside intact cells rather than relying only on samples that had been broken apart.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
The company also unveiled its first-ever TPU customized for inference, the type of AI computing involved in serving queries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
While they shot in black and white on set with a digital camera and customized image mapping, the conversion was done in parallel: colorizing the monochrome footage with different mapping and fine-tuning.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2026
Lots of kids at Welch High wanted customized posters to hang on their bedroom walls—of their boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s name, of their car or their astrological sign or their favorite band.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
"It avoids the complex process of customizing cells and uses readily available drugs to reversibly enhance NK cells' anti-tumor activities."
From Science Daily ● May 25, 2026
Vargo purchased her home in April 2025 for about $450,000, spending closer to $465,000 all in after customizing finishes like lighting, fixtures and hardware.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 24, 2026
Average time spent in the FAO Schwarz store has increased by 10% since it introduced these experiences, which include other first-come-first-serve interactive displays like customizing toys.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025
Plus, her fans went to the trouble of buying and customizing lookalike wigs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2025
Lena had been creating paint-by-numbers canvases for him, sketching them with expert speed, customizing each image to his specifications.
From "Fablehaven" by Brandon Mull
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.
