epitomize
Americanverb (used with object)
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epitomizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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epitomized,
past participle, past
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epitomizing
present participle
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to contain or represent in small compass; serve as a typical example of; typify.
This meadow epitomizes the beauty of the whole area.
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to make an epitome of.
to epitomize an argument.
verb
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to be a personification of; typify
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to make an epitome of
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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epitomizesimple
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epitomizessimple
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have epitomizedperfect
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has epitomizedperfect
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am epitomizingprogressive
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are epitomizingprogressive
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is epitomizingprogressive
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have been epitomizingperfect progressive
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has been epitomizingperfect progressive
Past
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epitomizedsimple
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had epitomizedperfect
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was epitomizingprogressive
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were epitomizingprogressive
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had been epitomizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of epitomize
Explanation
If you epitomize something, you’re a perfect example of that thing. If you never get nervous when playing basketball and can always make that last-second shot, your teammates might say you epitomize mental toughness. A person can epitomize something — usually an abstract quality, like grace or greed — but epitomize can apply to other things as well. A popular band might epitomize the spirit of the new decade, which means it has all the main characteristics associated with the era's music, like long folksy beards, pretty harmonies, and earnest lyrics. A frustrating situation at work involving careless coworkers might make you say that they epitomize everything that’s wrong with your job.
Vocabulary lists containing epitomize
The Color of Water
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Into Thin Air
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Harriet Tubman
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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:
The two entrepreneurs came to epitomize a certain swagger of the first hype cycle roughly a decade ago when Silicon Valley was betting it could replace a world of human-driven cars with robots.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 22, 2026
“They lost so much in the fires yet they’re still doing so much for their community. They really epitomize the spirit that we felt was rising in L.A.,”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 2, 2025
“Water projects came to epitomize the pork barrel; they were the oil can that lubricated the nation’s legislative machinery.”
From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2024
In browsing print shops and bookstores, I found and bought illustrated books by designers whose styles epitomize art nouveau, Art Deco, and the arts and crafts aesthetic.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 8, 2023
The time-tested strategy of using those who epitomize moral virtue as symbols in racial justice campaigns is far more difficult to employ in efforts to reform the criminal justice system.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Emmy-nominated for reality competition series and reality host, “Top Chef: Carolinas” epitomizes Kish’s swift remaking of the role in her own image.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
With Craftsman bungalows and tree-lined streets, the city still epitomizes suburban U.S.A. — but now has a hip new twist.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
The fund, founded in 1929, epitomizes Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle’s values —own a balanced mix of stocks and bonds, and keep your costs down.
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
The reliance on NAVs reported by other managers epitomizes black-box financial reporting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 16, 2026
There is but one law of evolution, and that which holds for the individual epitomizes that of a nation, or a world.
From Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul by Anna Bishop Scofield
The finish was epitomized in the final minutes when, leading by five, Smart had a lunging, slapping steal before throwing a perfect bounce pass to a driving James, who finished with a dunk.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026
That heritage gave both him and the backcountry settlers he epitomized their combative sense of equality and dignity—rooted in the history of British impositions on their ancestral lands in Ulster.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 1, 2026
On what many onlookers credited with being the loudest night of the season, a kindergartner perhaps epitomized what many of this city’s oldest and most die-hard fans are finally feeling.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026
Some longevity influencers attract rubbernecking for their quixotic quests to live forever, epitomized by venture capitalist Bryan Johnson’s vampiric infusions of his teenage son’s blood plasma.
From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2026
The passengers and driver laughed, but to Ma this episode epitomized her entire experience in Delaware, that darned turkey rolling down the darned aisle in front of all those darned people.
From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride
Times restaurant critic Bill Addison as “deftly engineered chaos,” ultimately epitomizing the “L.A. dreamer, the go-getter.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2026
A deal epitomizing the new era of resource nationalism was unveiled Wednesday when Glencore agreed to sell a stake in two African copper mines to a consortium backed by the U.S. government.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 4, 2026
If a ball doesn’t bounce off one Seahawk’s helmet on one play or a Brown’s hands on another, this team is 4-3 and epitomizing average.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 29, 2023
A recently discovered bird with a T. rex-like skull was unearthed in China — epitomizing, in one bizarre fossil, a visual representation of the long, strange evolution from dinosaurs to birds.
From Salon ● Jan. 6, 2023
So ran Bainbridge's epitomizing of the proletary's case; and he knew that his opinion was shared with complete unanimity by all who had known Griswold in Printing House Square.
From The Price by Francis Lynde
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.
