materialize
Americanverb (used without object)
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materializes,
present (3rd person singular)
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materialized,
past participle, past
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materializing
present participle
verb (used with object)
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materializes,
present (3rd person singular)
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materialized,
past participle, past
-
materializing
present participle
-
to give material form to; realize.
This year, she materialized her long-held ambition to go to law school.
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to invest with material attributes.
The writer materializes the more abstract ideas with metaphors, making the concepts easier to grasp.
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to make physically perceptible; cause (a spirit or the like) to appear in bodily form.
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to render materialistic.
verb
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(intr) to become fact; actually happen
our hopes never materialized
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to invest or become invested with a physical shape or form
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to cause (a spirit, as of a dead person) to appear in material form or (of a spirit) to appear in such form
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(intr) to take shape; become tangible
after hours of discussion, the project finally began to materialize
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physics to form (material particles) from energy, as in pair production
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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materializesimple
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materializessimple
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have materializedperfect
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has materializedperfect
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am materializingprogressive
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are materializingprogressive
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is materializingprogressive
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have been materializingperfect progressive
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has been materializingperfect progressive
Past
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materializedsimple
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had materializedperfect
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was materializingprogressive
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were materializingprogressive
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had been materializingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of materialize
Explanation
When you materialize, you show up suddenly after being missing, unborn, or unseen. Think of Harry Potter removing his invisibility cloak. He materializes. Living things aren't the only things that materialize. Car keys and reading glasses materialize when you've been searching for them for a while and then they are suddenly there on the table. If you're lucky an unexpected business deal will materialize. Like material, the word is related to the Latin word meaning "matter." Matter, is, of course, all the stuff of this earth, anything and everything that takes form. So to materialize is to take form.
Vocabulary lists containing materialize
100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know
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The Lightning Thief
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students, List 3
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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:
However, provisioning for losses that may never materialize is a questionable precaution, not least because economic and financial conditions are notoriously difficult to predict.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
Young voters said they felt frustrated waiting for a better economy that has yet to materialize.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026
“If the clouds don’t materialize, then Wednesday could be a real problem, and temperatures could really jump up,” Gomberg said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
“Large capex numbers are easy to announce on paper, but the growth needs to materialize for SpaceX and the debt markets to continue to justify it.”
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026
There was still a possibility that the body might materialize with the spring thaw.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Whether it gets made, he said, depends on whether the fund materializes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Regional governments are getting involved, with Bavaria committing up to 400 million euros to Proxima if federal funding also materializes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
Even if only a portion of that projected spending materializes, Arcuri said it would support his “long-held conviction that industry WFE could approach” about $300 billion by 2029.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
Even those whose families migrated here seeking a “better life” can speak to how uneven the American dream materializes across class, race and country of origin.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2026
The echo of the announcer’s voice fades away as the virtual world materializes around us.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
That effort eventually materialized into a special collection at UC San Diego.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
But a deal hasn’t materialized as the sides remained far apart on price.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
As we drove down to Orikum, a beach town south of Vlore, Aulon spoke at length about the other times they’ve been promised benefits from luxury tourist resorts that never materialized.
From Slate ● Sep. 8, 2026
“Despite the goal with these incentives being to attract filmmaking and lead to economic stimulus, that’s not materialized in the data,” Button said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
The stallion materialized right behind the gryphon, brought down his front hooves, and smashed the monster to dust.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
He doesn’t see “imminent” danger of any of the three risks he flagged materializing, which is why he’s staying bullish and “tactically positive on risk assets” — for now.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
He acknowledged the Fed “can’t bank on” productivity gains materializing, and said much work needs to be done to evaluate the AI impact before building policy around it.
From Barron's ● Apr. 24, 2026
“At the moment, we think the chances of this deal materializing are probably remote,” they write.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
Yoga was only just materializing on the fringes of American culture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
In every battered neighborhood, Mariam found people materializing from the rubble and moving into the streets.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
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.
