literalize

American  

[lit-er-uh-lahyz] / ˈlɪt ər əˌlaɪz /

especially British, literalise

verb (used with object)

literalized, literalizing

1. to make literal; interpret literally.

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Other Word Forms

• literalization noun
• literalizer noun
• unliteralized adjective

Etymology

Origin of literalize

First recorded in 1820–30; literal + -ize

Example Sentences

The camera darts between the lovers’ angry, exhausted faces in a flurry of slamming edits and chin-severing closeups, as if to literalize the idea that something between them has broken.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 7, 2022

Is it too much to expect that a show about the difficulty of deciding between the light and the dark would, I dunno, literalize that conflict with a swoony bad influence?

From Slate • Oct. 25, 2018

Something about Knott froze in childhood, leaving a body of work marked by the child’s tendency to literalize imaginative schemes.

From The New Yorker • Mar. 27, 2017

“The Whispers” throws in marital drama, nuclear sabotage and the F.B.I., and it has to literalize the invaders, who now manipulate electricity and can snatch a fighter jet out of the sky.

From New York Times • May 31, 2015

Whether we believe in literal fire or not, we certainly ought to ask for a reason for the Master's failure to literalize the figurative word "fire."

From The Great Doctrines of the Bible by Evans, William