italicize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
italicizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
italicized,
past participle, past
-
italicizing
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
italicizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
italicized,
past participle, past
-
italicizing
present participle
verb
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to print (textual matter) in italic type
-
(tr) to underline (letters, words, etc) with a single line to indicate italics
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
italicizesimple
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italicizessimple
-
have italicizedperfect
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has italicizedperfect
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am italicizingprogressive
-
are italicizingprogressive
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is italicizingprogressive
-
have been italicizingperfect progressive
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has been italicizingperfect progressive
Past
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italicizedsimple
-
had italicizedperfect
-
was italicizingprogressive
-
were italicizingprogressive
-
had been italicizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of italicize
Explanation
When you italicize your writing, you print or type in the slanted letters called "italics." You can italicize a word in a sentence when you want to emphasize it. People italicize for various reasons: they might italicize the title of a book, or a section of dialogue that's yelled by a character in a story. Print that you italicize usually slopes from left to right, and it resembles script or cursive writing. Italicize and italics come from the Latin word for "Italian," italicus. This print style was named in honor of the Italian printer credited as the first to use it.
Vocabulary lists containing italicize
STAAR Grade 5 Reading: Informational Text, List 2
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Week 2 Spelling
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Week 3 Vocabulary
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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 pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was italicize.
From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2022
She doesn’t italicize the Hindi, affirming the fluidity of language in conversation and thought.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2022
Notes allows you to bold and italicize, too, which I do every once in a while if I’m feeling wild.
From The Verge ● Jan. 17, 2022
Rayne’s production does not italicize the issue, but the show is not indifferent, either.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 28, 2017
The next step is to italicize these words, thus treating them as complete aliens, and thus we often see rôle, dépôt, &c.
From Society for Pure English, Tract 03 (1920) A Few Practical Suggestions by Society for Pure English
In a startlingly modern conception, the negative space of Claudel’s abrupt amputation exposes — and italicizes — the human body’s dense, inescapable physicality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 2024
That metric underlines, italicizes and bolds McIlroy's steadiness from start to finish in the 2018-'19 season.
From Golf Digest ● Aug. 26, 2019
The writers’ room consistently supplies stilted syntax to suit her imperious delivery, and Jackson reliably italicizes her lines with terrifically witchy gestures.
From The New Yorker ● May 30, 2018
Mr. Lucci gives Gross immense dignity without shrinking at all from his flamboyance; he italicizes italics and turns sibilance into music.
From New York Times ● May 6, 2018
And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis.
From How to Tell a Story and Other Essays by Mark Twain
His first major book, “In Our Time,” published a century ago this month, includes 14 short stories and 16 intense italicized single-page interchapters between the stories.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2025
It had a blue cover, she said, and was unmarked except for “cuaderno de trabajo” written in the italicized superscript taught in elementary schools around Mexico.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2024
I have italicized the words that make this requirement a very low bar.
From Slate ● Feb. 21, 2024
Carolina’s jersey numbers are italicized, as are player names, “to signify the resistance of the force of a hurricane,” according to Adidas.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 26, 2023
The italicized language in the description of the referenced exchange is paraphrased, not directly quoted.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
But the latest round of queries about Hegseth’s qualifications and moral maturity may—it’s worth italicizing, may—be altering the equations.
From Slate ● Dec. 2, 2025
While we’re at it, let’s just stop italicizing passages entirely.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 8, 2023
The most frustrating bug, though, is its insistence on italicizing text unbidden.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 9, 2022
In January, Escárcega announced that the food pages were abandoning the age-old practice of italicizing non-English words.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 26, 2020
Alas! for the horrible slang of those days, the vapid witless Corinthian talk, with its ogles and its fogles, its pointless jokes, its maddening habit of italicizing a word or two in every sentence.
From Through the Magic Door by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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.
