maximize
Americanverb (used with object)
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maximizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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maximized,
past participle, past
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maximizing
present participle
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to increase to the greatest possible amount or degree.
to look for ways of maximizing profit.
-
to represent at the highest possible estimate; magnify.
He maximized his importance in the program, minimizing the contributions of the other participants.
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to make the greatest or fullest use of.
Maximize your time by planning ahead.
verb
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(tr) to make as high or great as possible; increase to a maximum
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maths to find the maximum of (a function)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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maximizesimple
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maximizessimple
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have maximizedperfect
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has maximizedperfect
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am maximizingprogressive
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are maximizingprogressive
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is maximizingprogressive
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have been maximizingperfect progressive
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has been maximizingperfect progressive
Past
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maximizedsimple
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had maximizedperfect
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was maximizingprogressive
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were maximizingprogressive
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had been maximizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of maximize
Explanation
When you maximize something, you make it as big as you possibly can, the way you would maximize your chances of winning the lottery if you spent all of your money on lottery tickets. It seems like you come across the word maximize most often in dry, boring contexts like businesses trying to "maximize" their profits or a politician wanting to "maximize" her government's potential. Regular people probably use it more often when they're talking about their computers, to mean "display a window at its largest size." When you maximize a window on your computer, you can actually see what the word means!
Vocabulary lists containing maximize
Scrabble: High Scoring Words
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20 Common Words That Will Boost Your Scrabble Score
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Workshop 2, Part 1
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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:
“How you can ... maximize those four guys. And I do think with those four guys, it doesn’t matter the opponent, so that’s not a variable.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2026
They do themselves fewer favors when their agents replace jobs and maximize profits for their owners, he argues.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026
They also suggest that reducing treatment interruptions could help maximize the drugs' protective effects on the heart.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2026
“The problem is that we designed this whole system just to maximize savings, maximize account value, and then you get to retirement, we hand the money back to you and say ‘good luck,’” Nefouse said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
Still, if a team of experts had set out to create a human being to maximize the likelihood that he would terrify a Wall Street customer, they might have designed something like Lippmann.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Banana Ball is fast-paced, hilarious and maximizes fan engagement.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
“Most people are only setting aside 6% in their retirement plans because that maximizes their employer-match. Catch-ups don’t come into play too often.”
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 29, 2026
This approach maximizes bandwidth efficiency and adapts to changes in signal quality.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 2, 2026
In its lawsuit, Anthropic said it was founded on the belief that its AI should be "used in a way that maximizes positive outcomes for humanity" and should "be the safest and the most responsible."
From Barron's ● Mar. 9, 2026
Intensive agriculture is much more productive but maximizes the land’s exposure.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Sending those ships on repeat voyages with quick turnaround times maximized the amount of crude they could get out of Hormuz.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
In this case, HP also raised prices, maximized the value of the inventory it already had, and tried to push demand to higher-margin products.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
The effect of clipping is context collapse maximized to further a hasty impression of a vaguely famous person.
From Slate ● May 6, 2026
Hopkinson told the Financial Times Business of Football Summit last month that Newcastle had not "maximized the opportunity before it".
From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2026
But conventional agriculture focuses on maximized yields through high plant densities.
From Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway by Steve Solomon
This trade-off almost always falls on the side of maximizing your reach and volume.
From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2026
He has emphasized his focus on maximizing shareholder value and has said the company should look at “optimizing our portfolio,” sometimes seen as Wall Street code for selling parts of the business.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
“We’re coming up with new ways on how to improve and maximizing potential,” Anderson said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
Instead of attempting full reusability from the beginning, the design focuses on partial reuse while maximizing efficiency.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026
Regiomontanus’s procedure for measuring parallax ideally involved comparing the apparent position of a celestial object soon after dark with its apparent position not long before dawn, thus maximizing the parallax to be measured.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
