metabolize
Americanverb (used with or without object)
-
metabolizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
metabolized,
past participle, past
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metabolizing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
metabolizesimple
-
metabolizessimple
-
have metabolizedperfect
-
has metabolizedperfect
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am metabolizingprogressive
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are metabolizingprogressive
-
is metabolizingprogressive
-
have been metabolizingperfect progressive
-
has been metabolizingperfect progressive
Past
-
metabolizedsimple
-
had metabolizedperfect
-
was metabolizingprogressive
-
were metabolizingprogressive
-
had been metabolizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of metabolize
First recorded in 1885–90; metabol(ism) + -ize
Explanation
When bodies process various substances, you can say they metabolize them. For example, when your body takes in calories, it metabolizes them, putting them to good use. This verb, a back-formation from metabolism, is pretty much the sine qua non — or essential element — of being alive: it's everyone's 24/7 occupation. The Greek root, metabole, only means "a change," which is the one thing that's inescapable while we go about in this mortal coil.
Vocabulary lists containing metabolize
Ecology - Middle School
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Ecology - High School
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Cosmos
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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:
As microorganisms consume and metabolize organic materials, they produce carbon dioxide through respiration.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026
When there are unknowns about how an industry will metabolize certain technological changes, they want to hire someone who bounces back from mistakes and takes setbacks in stride.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
Movies, for better or worse, are among the few remaining ways for Americans to encounter, metabolize, and wrestle with big moral issues at scale.
From Slate ● Mar. 13, 2026
At the basic cellular level, we are beings that metabolize energy, reproduce offspring and pursue survival.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026
My appetite vanished and my digestive system, which required abundant oxygen to metabolize food, failed to make use of much of what I forced myself to eat; instead my body began consuming itself for sustenance.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
"As the body metabolizes the rapamycin, the two fragments disjoin, deactivating the system."
From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2023
Day after day, year after year, that repetitive exposure to the mainstream metabolizes in you until you’re irrevocably changed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2023
As the liver metabolizes vinyl chloride, it spits out a chemical called chloroethylene oxide, which subsequently binds to our DNA, essentially vandalizing it and increasing the risk of tumor formation.
From Salon ● Feb. 15, 2023
One limitation with Paxlovid is that the active ingredient is given alongside another drug that reduces how fast the body metabolizes it, and this can also affect other drugs a patient is on.
From Scientific American ● Feb. 8, 2023
"Oh, it metabolizes, all right, but you'd better find yourself another axiom, pretty quick."
From Contamination Crew by Alan Edward Nourse
The pill’s active ingredient, orforglipron, is primarily metabolized by the liver.
From Barron's ● May 4, 2026
“Most of it doesn’t get metabolized, meaning that we don’t extract energy from it, and it passes through and is excreted in the stool,” Fetter said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
In 1993, the FDA approved a clinical trial to test ibogaine’s safety and how it was metabolized in the body.
From Salon ● Feb. 8, 2025
Only a relatively small amount of ethanol is metabolized in the intestines, where probiotics do their work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2024
On examination his fat was found to contain stored dieldrin, which had been metabolized as he lost weight.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
At the same time, arginine slightly increased the presence of streptococci that are better at metabolizing arginine.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 9, 2026
Since the 1990s we’ve grown accustomed to hip-hop importing and metabolizing the sonorities and techniques of jazz.
From New York Times ● Jul. 5, 2023
To this day people can still mimic Catherine O'Hara's showstopping lip-synch without metabolizing the song's meaning.
From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2023
This pattern of eating aligns with our innate 24-hour clocks, or circadian rhythms, which cause our bodies to be most efficient at metabolizing meals in the morning and early afternoon.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 14, 2023
First, when Martian soil was mixed with a sterile organic soup from Earth, something in the soil chemically broke down the soup—almost as if there were respiring microbes metabolizing a food package from Earth.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
