editorialize
Americanverb (used without object)
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to set forth one's position or opinion on some subject in, or as if in, an editorial.
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to inject personal interpretations or opinions into an otherwise factual account.
verb
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to express an opinion in or as in an editorial
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to insert one's personal opinions into an otherwise objective account
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of editorialize
Explanation
When you editorialize, you offer your opinion when it's not appropriate. A newspaper reporter might editorialize by describing a state's Governor as "a loud mouth." There are many times when it's perfectly acceptable to express your personal opinion, but whenever it's not okay — especially in journalism — you editorialize. In a news article about farming, a writer might editorialize by stating her personal preference for locally grown food, for example. The word editorialize was coined in 1856, meaning "introduce opinions into factual accounts," from editorial, "written by an editor," and the Latin root editor, "one who puts forth."
Vocabulary lists containing editorialize
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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:
Since the film is a light cinéma vérité style, Iwerks doesn’t editorialize as to how it all did get done.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2026
They always want to editorialize and show us what they are.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2024
Now, it’s a reasonable question as to whether the special counsel really needed to editorialize about his subject like this rather than simply issue a charging decision.
From Slate ● Feb. 10, 2024
“We’re not trying to editorialize on any of this.”
From Washington Times ● Jun. 26, 2023
They lean with the prevailing winds and employ every fallacy of logic in order to editorialize harmoniously with popular prejudices.
From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin
The line between the real dialogue and the editorialized bits of fiction isn’t always clear; the production inspires you to question it, examine it, see where the boundary is.
From New York Times ● Nov. 22, 2022
“The Tragedy of Macbeth” allows those associations to occur freely, without feeling shoehorned or editorialized.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2021
Times editorialized in 1965, when the matter came up again, how would many new Californias shoulder the whole state’s earlier bond commitments?
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2021
And as The Seattle Times editorial board recently editorialized, “with the world running out of time, there is no room for half measures.”
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 8, 2021
The Morning Herald, sanctimonious as ever, editorialized: There is a proper course in protesting substandard housing, and Operation Breakthrough would have been well advised to have counseled the Edgemont Community Council to follow it.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
No sooner are we confronted with life’s most painful mysteries—the inevitability of death; the inevitability, too, of the failure of love—than she interrupts her own narrative with editorializing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
So I’m just curious if there’s some weird middle ground that dissenting justices and lower-court judges need to find so that it doesn’t look like name-calling or editorializing?
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2025
But there were already complaints about Taruskin’s excessive editorializing, about his pronounced likes and dislikes, about what he had left out, and I wanted once more to set the record straight with Taruskin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2022
Justice and entertainment rarely, if ever, coincide, seeing as the former is supposed to be truth-based and the latter necessitates significant editorializing.
From Salon ● May 27, 2022
That is the worst of daily editorializing; having come safely and inoffensively through with one editorial, the matter is at an end as far as that particular writer is concerned—that is, as a usual thing.
From The International Jew The World's Foremost Problem by Ford, Henry
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.
