glamorize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make glamorous.
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to glorify or romanticize.
an adventure film that tended to glamorize war.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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glamorizationnoun
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glamorizernoun
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overglamorizeverb (used with object)
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overglamourizeverb (used with object)
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unglamorizedadjective
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unglamourizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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glamorizesimple
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glamorizessimple
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have glamorizedperfect
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has glamorizedperfect
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am glamorizingprogressive
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are glamorizingprogressive
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is glamorizingprogressive
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have been glamorizingperfect progressive
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has been glamorizingperfect progressive
Past
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glamorizedsimple
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had glamorizedperfect
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was glamorizingprogressive
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were glamorizingprogressive
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had been glamorizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of glamorize
An Americanism dating back to 1935–40; glamor ( def. ) + -ize
Explanation
When you make something seem more attractive or exciting than it really is, you glamorize it. Movies you've seen might glamorize camping, but after three days with no shower, you may find it less enticing. Making anything appear glamorous is to glamorize it. So you can glamorize your dog by dressing him in a fancy velvet collar studded with jewels. It's more common, however, to use this verb for the act of making difficult or dangerous things seem very alluring. A book might glamorize a climb to the top of Mt. Everest (which is actually very dangerous), and an old movie might glamorize the life of a gangster (which was decidedly less luxurious once he was convicted and imprisoned).
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:
It didn’t valorize or glamorize the economic downturn; it just portrayed it in the way that the people who lived there experienced it.
From Salon ● Jan. 27, 2026
Glamorous as the exiles are, Kentridge does not glamorize them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 8, 2025
Michael Mann’s Ferrari may glamorize speed, but Mann isn’t shy about showing its consequences.
From Slate ● Nov. 27, 2023
But unlike DIS — who do so without discernible politics and tend to glamorize a sense of existential resignation — Kline is stridently and sincerely polemical.
From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2023
“I suppose I did glamorize it a bit,” he admitted.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
Booth glamorizes the hustle, but Lincoln lived the dangers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 5, 2025
“He won’t play in a drama that glamorizes evil or glorifies violence. ‘I’m no nut on that,’ he says, ‘my pictures don’t have to carry a message — but they do have to say something.’
From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2024
“I don't find that this movie glamorizes suicide. I don't find that this movie simplifies suicide. I think it shows it for the complexity.”
From Salon ● Jan. 30, 2024
Jones said she’s aware that some critics of the franchise believe the series glamorizes teen pregnancy to young viewers.
From Fox News ● Oct. 26, 2019
“I feel it very much glamorizes it,” she said.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 31, 2017
"It's very glamorized, and it feels very professional and fun," said Grace Stark, a world 100m bronze medallist in Tokyo last month.
From Barron's ● Oct. 10, 2025
Lestat’s figment doubles as his love’s guilty conscience and a glamorized memory.
From Salon ● May 26, 2024
A federal judge struck down the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate premium, hand-rolled cigars on Wednesday, offering relief to makers of a luxury product glamorized in films and celebrations.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2023
Beyond that, most people present a glamorized version of their lives online, and instead of listening, empathizing and engaging in conversations, people leap to confrontations, trying to publicly obliterate anyone who disagrees with them.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 9, 2022
Now that he had gone, these things, so long subdued by his presence, were glamorized in his wake.
From "Sula" by Toni Morrison
Though the streamer’s history of glamorizing and heightening heinous acts isn’t necessarily indicative of the quality of “The Perfect Neighbor,” it does cloud the documentary’s release with apprehension.
From Salon ● Oct. 21, 2025
Bayona’s film seeks to honor the story and strays away from glamorizing or sensationalizing the horrors the passengers and crew members endured.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 2, 2024
“It wasn’t about glamorizing or promoting anything except telling her story that then could be a vehicle for others to have these very difficult conversations.”
From Washington Times ● Dec. 11, 2022
Her wide, defiantly plain face and unruly emotionalism seemed to reject the cosseting, glamorizing gaze of Hollywood cameras.
From New York Times ● Aug. 26, 2020
Or this: “Didion has so often been accused of glamorizing depression, but instead what she’s glamorizing is the slim possibility of depression not hollowing one out, of despair and doing.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 12, 2020
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.
