dramatize
Americanverb (used with object)
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dramatizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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dramatized,
past participle, past
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dramatizing
present participle
-
to put into a form suitable for acting on a stage.
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to express or represent vividly, emotionally, or strikingly.
He dramatizes his woes with sobs and sighs.
verb (used without object)
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dramatizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
dramatized,
past participle, past
-
dramatizing
present participle
verb
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(tr) to put into dramatic form
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to express or represent (something) in a dramatic or exaggerated way
he dramatizes his illness
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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dramatizernoun
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overdramatizeverb
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dramatizableadjective
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undramatizableadjective
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undramatizedadjective
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well-dramatizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dramatizesimple
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dramatizessimple
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have dramatizedperfect
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has dramatizedperfect
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am dramatizingprogressive
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are dramatizingprogressive
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is dramatizingprogressive
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have been dramatizingperfect progressive
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has been dramatizingperfect progressive
Past
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dramatizedsimple
-
had dramatizedperfect
-
was dramatizingprogressive
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were dramatizingprogressive
-
had been dramatizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dramatize
Explanation
To dramatize something is to put it in dramatic form (like a TV show or movie) or make it seem more dramatic, using exaggeration. Anytime you see a movie or TV show about real events, the actors are dramatizing what really happened. If you slipped on the sidewalk and hurt your knee a little but later made it sound like the most tragic event in the history of humanity, you're guilty of dramatizing what happened. To dramatize in that way is to exaggerate and embellish — it's something that we all do occasionally.
Vocabulary lists containing dramatize
March: Book Two
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ize
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-ize, List 2
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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:
And I think it was interesting to try and find levels to it and to have the audience come with you, but not dramatize or exaggerate an emotion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2026
Lighting design by Manuel Da Silva, the group’s production manager, provided pools and shafts of illumination to dramatize the darkened stage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 20, 2026
It is a fine line since law ads can dramatize, but they are not allowed to promise results or payouts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2025
Sophocles’ “Antigone” and Euripides’ “Suppliant Women” dramatize tensions between personal morality, state power and democratic rights.
From Salon ● Apr. 13, 2025
Now, I doctored this passage to make it bewilderingly incoherent, just to dramatize the topic of this chapter.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Along one wall, a 19th-century trompe l’oeil screen dramatizes the classical gentlemanly taste that dominated among Neo-Confucian elites.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 2026
An all-female cast dramatizes this inspiring American story.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025
But skirting cliché, the entertaining third season of “Hacks,” which just concluded, dramatizes a more novel and pointed onstage moment: the crisis of success.
From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2024
Setting a libretto by Richard Wesley, it dramatizes the notorious case in 1989 of Black teenagers who were convicted of attacking a female jogger, but were later exonerated.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
It dramatizes sound with unique artistic rhythm and design.
From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin
The case of Los Primos has dramatized the proliferation of graft in the armed forces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
Rick Cole, a former deputy mayor of L.A., said the DSA label for both candidates doesn’t mean they’ll adhere to the most dramatized versions of what DSA stands for.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
Melies ended up as a toy seller in Paris’ Gare Montparnasse train station -- a story that was dramatized in Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film, "Hugo."
From Barron's ● Apr. 13, 2026
But in 2026, everything can be dramatized until we’re numb to the truth of what we’re seeing.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2026
The aura of science and medical research was meticulously maintained, often dramatized to achieve an even greater effect on public imagination.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Major YouTube and TikTok creators—most without any legal background whatsoever—pumped out hundreds of videos dramatizing each step of the trial.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026
Why was it important to you to tell this story as a documentary versus dramatizing it?
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2024
To him, architecture has a role in resolving the complexities of culture, not necessarily dramatizing them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2024
And this is among Kidman’s finest and most chameleonic work, expertly dramatizing both a woman in disarray and the circumstances that got her there.
From New York Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
When Hale was on the stand, he gestured wildly, dramatizing how the electricity had allegedly jolted his body.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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.
