hospitalize
Americanverb (used with object)
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hospitalizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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hospitalized,
past participle, past
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hospitalizing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hospitalizesimple
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hospitalizessimple
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have hospitalizedperfect
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has hospitalizedperfect
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am hospitalizingprogressive
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are hospitalizingprogressive
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is hospitalizingprogressive
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have been hospitalizingperfect progressive
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has been hospitalizingperfect progressive
Past
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hospitalizedsimple
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had hospitalizedperfect
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was hospitalizingprogressive
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were hospitalizingprogressive
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had been hospitalizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hospitalize
Explanation
To hospitalize is either to check a patient into a hospital, or to injure someone seriously enough that they need to be treated in a hospital. If you get a bad infection, your doctor may decide to hospitalize you. Any time doctors decide that a patient ought to be treated intensively or needs a serious kind of surgery, they hospitalize their patient. It's more common to find this verb in the phrase "was hospitalized," as in "My favorite basketball player was hospitalized after collapsing on the court." Grammar snobs have long disapproved of verbs formed with the -ize suffix, and hospitalize was controversial when it was coined around 1870.
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:
Many were galvanized by the police’s decision over the weekend to forcibly hospitalize a prominent activist who has been on a hunger strike in support of the movement.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
When he gets unruly, they discharge or hospitalize him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 10, 2024
The girl’s mother had previously told The Associated Press that agents had repeatedly ignored her pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter, who had a history of heart problems and sick cell anemia.
From Washington Times ● May 21, 2023
Adams announced a plan in November to hospitalize some severely mentally ill people involuntarily, citing the city’s “moral obligation to act.”
From Seattle Times ● May 10, 2023
I cannot get her out of this steel block unless I hospitalize her, perhaps operate.
From Sinister Paradise by Robert Moore Williams
In the United States, it hospitalizes 2% to 3% of infants annually, mostly between 0 and 5 months of age.
From Science Magazine ● May 18, 2023
Every year, it hospitalizes an average of 1 to 2 percent of children younger than 6 months.
From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2022
She and other infectious-disease specialists are also revisiting their response to RSV, a common virus that hospitalizes about 60,000 children younger than 5 each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 13, 2022
Thailand hospitalizes and isolates anyone found positive with the virus, putting a strain on the number of beds available.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 23, 2021
“Each year, the flu sickens millions and hospitalizes hundreds of thousands of people during the fall and winter months. The elderly are especially hard hit every year,” said Peter Kirk, Sermo CEO.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 2, 2020
Among 288 patients, 14 were hospitalized or died.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
“He was hospitalized for many weeks and continues to have permanent and debilitating burn injuries that affect every aspect of his daily life.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
The former Senate majority leader was hospitalized June 14 after he briefly lost consciousness and fell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
McConnell was hospitalized in mid-June after being found unconscious in his D.C. home.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026
“You look as if you should be hospitalized, too,” Mrs. Palmer said, after everyone had briefly explained what happened.
From "Earthquake Terror" by Peg Kehret
And only a small percentage of people are masking or taking other precautions in public despite a new wave of covid, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus infections hospitalizing and killing seniors.
From Salon ● Feb. 12, 2024
It is still killing roughly 1,000 Americans each week and hospitalizing even more.
From New York Times ● May 5, 2023
Experts say the decision about hospitalizing someone with clinical depression is often based on the severity and duration of symptoms, insurance coverage and whether they are a danger to themselves.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 17, 2023
Their warnings have come with over 1 million U.S. deaths from the disease and a fresh variant that daily is hospitalizing over 100,000 Americans and killing more than 300.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 1, 2022
Mother was confused, but she always has the good manners to be hospitalizing even to perfect strangers, so she asked them in and told me to run squeeze some orange juice.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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.
