generalize

American  

[jen-er-uh-lahyz] / ˈdʒɛn ər əˌlaɪz /

especially British, generalise

verb (used with object)

• generalizes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• generalized,
  past participle,  past
• generalizing
  present participle

1. to infer (a general principle, trend, etc.) from particular facts, statistics, or the like.

2. to infer or form (a general principle, opinion, conclusion, etc.) from only a few facts, examples, or the like.

3. to give a general rather than a specific or special character or form to.

4. to make general; bring into general use or knowledge.

---

verb (used without object)

• generalizes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• generalized,
  past participle,  past
• generalizing
  present participle

1. to form general principles, opinions, etc.

2. to deal, think, or speak in generalities.

3. to make general inferences.

generalize British  

/ ˈdʒɛnrəˌlaɪz /

verb

1. to form (general principles or conclusions) from (detailed facts, experience, etc); infer

2. (intr) to think or speak in generalities, esp in a prejudiced way

3. (tr; usually passive) to cause to become widely used or known

4. (intr)

   1. to spread throughout the body

   2. to change from a localized infection or condition to a systemic one

      generalized infection

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• generalizer
  noun
• generalizable
  adjective
• nongeneralized
  adjective
• ungeneralized
  adjective
• ungeneralizing
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• generalizing
  present
• generalized
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• generalize
  simple
• generalizes
  simple
• have generalized
  perfect
• has generalized
  perfect
• am generalizing
  progressive
• are generalizing
  progressive
• is generalizing
  progressive
• have been generalizing
  perfect progressive
• has been generalizing
  perfect progressive

Past

• generalized
  simple
• had generalized
  perfect
• was generalizing
  progressive
• were generalizing
  progressive
• had been generalizing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will generalize
  simple
• will have generalized
  perfect
• will be generalizing
  progressive
• will have been generalizing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of generalize

First recorded in 1745–55; general + -ize

Explanation

To generalize is to use specific examples to make broader points. Generalizing makes large points, though they aren't always necessarily true. When someone says "in general" they're talking about what things are like in the big picture or overall. Similarly, generalizing takes small examples and uses them to make bigger points. Saying that all teens are selfish because you know a few selfish teens is generalizing. Saying all adults are uptight is an example of generalizing. Unfortunately, generalizing can be dangerous. Stereotyping is a form of generalizing. Sometimes it’s better to stick to specific examples and to avoid generalizing.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

generalize generalizes generalized generalizing

He recently asked a model to help generalize one of his arguments, only for the model to spot an error in that argument.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026

"Keeping it in flatter parts of the landscape, where lots of solutions perform similarly well, turns out to be what allows these models to generalize."

From Science Daily ● Jan. 15, 2026

AI models may perform well on the data they’re trained on, but “really the proof of the value of it is, does it generalize to an external population?” he noted.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 11, 2025

And economics teaches us not to generalize data trends when the “rules of the game” change.

From Barron's ● Oct. 22, 2025

But my reactions were limited to the attitude of the people about me, and I did not speculate or generalize.

From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright

"People miss information when they follow an algorithm, but they think what they do know generalizes to other features and other parts of the environment that they've never experienced," Turner said.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 25, 2025

If Hu and his colleagues can show this behavior generalizes to other materials, he says, physicists may have to revise established models for environments such as outer space or planetary interiors, including Earth's.

From Scientific American ● Apr. 28, 2023

Another clear pitfall of the Pace approach is that it generalizes calories burnt.

From Salon ● Nov. 14, 2022

I take issue with the framing of this article that generalizes crime by guards as the problem plaguing prisons.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 3, 2021

As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, because it generalizes, I can’t believe it with my stomach.

From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

There are ways to improve voting integrity, but Mr. Tillis is right that it’s reckless to sow generalized suspicion that American elections aren’t honest.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

Any sign that war related inflation was causing generalized price hikes would be "a warning sign," that might require interest rate hikes, Macklem added.

From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026

"We can apply these generalized laws to better understand evaporating black holes in quantum theory and black hole mergers, like those detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration using gravitational waves."

From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026

The paper estimated that the rise of remote work explained 32% of the generalized increase in mental distress nationwide between the prepandemic period of 2011 to 2019 and the postpandemic period of 2022 to 2024.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 27, 2026

In 1605 this new idea of discovery was generalized by Francis Bacon in Of the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

If this were a one-off event, we would want to avoid generalizing.

From MarketWatch ● Mar. 3, 2026

The two agencies routinely assert that they explain the methods used, but their generalizing descriptions—some of the language of which they’ve repeated for over a decade—don’t come close to routine standards for economic scholarship.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025

In the next months, Svoboda and the scientists from the Chatterjee group will work on generalizing their results to other games and different settings.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 6, 2024

“China believes that generalizing national security is not conducive to normal economic and trade exchanges,” Xinhua said.

From New York Times ● Jul. 9, 2023

Dobzhansky could now restate the essential truth of Mendel’s discovery—a gene determines a physical feature—by generalizing that idea across multiple genes and multiple features: a genotype determines a phenotype.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee