hospitalize

American  

[hos-pi-tl-ahyz] / ˈhɒs pɪ tlˌaɪz /

especially British, hospitalise

verb (used with object)

hospitalized, hospitalizing

1. to place in a hospital for medical care or observation.

   The doctor hospitalized grandfather as soon as she checked his heart.

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hospitalize British  

/ ˈhɒspɪtəˌlaɪz /

verb

1. (tr) to admit or send (a person) into a hospital

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Other Word Forms

• rehospitalize verb (used with object)
• unhospitalized adjective

Etymology

Origin of hospitalize

First recorded in 1900–05; hospital + -ize

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

When he gets unruly, they discharge or hospitalize him.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 10, 2024

Mabel Alvarez Benedicks told the AP that agents repeatedly ignored pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter as she felt pain in her bones, struggled to breathe and was unable to walk.

From Washington Times • May 22, 2023

The Justice Department is pursuing investigations in a handful of states, probing whether they hospitalize too many people that could benefit from less drastic measures.

From New York Times • Mar. 23, 2023

It would give outreach workers, city hospitals and first responders, including police, the discretion to involuntarily hospitalize anyone they deem a danger to themselves or unable to care for themselves.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 29, 2022

I cannot get her out of this steel block unless I hospitalize her, perhaps operate.

From Sinister Paradise by Williams, Robert Moore