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
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materializing
present participle
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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:
If AI tools fail to drive the hoped-for efficiencies, corporate expenses will scale with revenue, and the projected margin benefits won’t materialize.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
How hard he’s willing to push for that change will be an interesting story to follow should his speakership ever materialize.
From Slate ● Jul. 18, 2026
"For some of us, those threats have come very close, and all of us live with the knowledge that they may again materialize," Kagan, a liberal justice, told lawmakers in the House hearing.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
If any of those consensus predictions for the second quarter don’t materialize, then he recommends a series of strategies to exploit markets that are wrong-footed.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 10, 2026
If a single thing went wrong—the rental truck broke down, the apartment wasn’t available, a job didn’t materialize swiftly—Jesse and Eric didn’t even have enough money to get back to Idaho.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
“Bottom line, I like treating this weakness as an opportunity rather than a warning, with my expectation being for a push back to new highs before a choppier period materializes into September,” he says.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026
The El Niño climate pattern materializes erratically every two to seven years and can last up to a year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 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
Even if a peace deal eventually materializes, the oil price isn’t likely to fall back to levels seen before the war.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
I gape like a fish as Cook, as silent-footed as her mistress, materializes from behind the sheet I've just hung up.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
Sales to universities, which Jobs hoped would be a major customer, never materialized in large numbers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Such lines of business have not yet materialized.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
The deal was supposed to help him secure a Trump pardon after a federal gun case, but the pardon never materialized, and Boosie is now trying to recover part of the money through arbitration.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
Has Paul materialized in some kind of composite of those memories?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Somehow the badchan materialized in front of the wagon.
From "The Devil's Arithmetic" by Jane Yolen
Support is also materializing among state-owned enterprises, with actual orders placed, MS adds in a research note.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026
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
G’ma says, materializing, it seems, at Scoob’s shoulder and reaching for the vibrating device.
From "Clean Getaway" by Nic Stone
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.
