commercialize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make commercial in character, methods, or spirit.
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to emphasize the profitable aspects of, especially at the expense of quality.
to commercialize one's artistic talent.
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to offer for sale; make available as a commodity.
verb
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to make commercial in aim, methods, or character
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to exploit for profit, esp at the expense of quality
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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commercializationnoun
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commercializernoun
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decommercializationnoun
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overcommercializationnoun
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decommercializeverb (used with object)
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overcommercializeverb (used with object)
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quasi-commercializedadjective
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uncommercializedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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commercializesimple
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commercializessimple
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have commercializedperfect
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has commercializedperfect
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am commercializingprogressive
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are commercializingprogressive
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is commercializingprogressive
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have been commercializingperfect progressive
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has been commercializingperfect progressive
Past
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commercializedsimple
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had commercializedperfect
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was commercializingprogressive
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were commercializingprogressive
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had been commercializingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of commercialize
Explanation
To commercialize something is to make money from it. If you're a painter, you might commercialize your art by printing greeting cards and selling them online. The verb commercialize comes from the adjective commercial, "done for financial profit," and its root, the Latin commercium, "trade." When you take an activity or an organization and manage it so that it results in a profit, you commercialize it. Delivering baked goods to your neighbors out of a sense of generosity is one thing — when you start charging them two dollars per cookie, you've commercialized your hobby.
Vocabulary lists containing commercialize
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:
In the fall of 2022, she learned that a research lab called Anthropic was planning to commercialize its AI efforts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
The 33rd US president later wrote that it was wrong to "commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency".
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
The funding comes through the agency’s National Quantum Virtual Laboratory program, which unites researchers, industry, and government to develop and commercialize quantum technology.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
Sakuu is currently working to commercialize this tech with a major battery manufacturer—Niestroj didn’t say who, or when those cells would go on the market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
Howard declined, citing a most unlikely reason: “We do not care to commercialize Seabiscuit.”
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
Words such as love, trust, freedom, responsibility and choice have been deformed by a market logic that commercializes and commodifies all relations of exchange.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2022
The court said that José Luis Calama has decided to lead a judicial commission that will travel to Israel to “take testimony from the CEO of the company that commercializes the Pegasus program.”
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 7, 2022
“That’s very impressive,” says Stephen Dobson, a medical entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and the founder of MosquitoMate, a company that commercializes Wolbachia as a tool to control the Asian tiger mosquito.
From Nature ● Jul. 16, 2019
Yet, only two open-source companies have gone public: Red Hat Inc., RHT -0.12 % which commercializes the ubiquitous Linux operating system, and Hortonworks Inc., which commercializes the data storage and analysis software known as Hadoop.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2016
The man who discovers means to help his fellowman, does a good act, but it is the man with the dollars in front of his eyes that commercializes the discovery and invention.
From Evening Round Up More Good Stuff Like Pep by Hunter, William Crosbie
If the technology is commercialized, a single programmable optical chip could perform several tasks, including controlling signal speed and switching between different functions.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 22, 2026
“I didn’t love it as much as the other because of the commercialized feeling of it, and just the fact it never felt you were alone in Yosemite,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Over the past year or so, fringe ideas have been commercialized for the mainstream.
From Salon ● Jun. 15, 2026
The bigger question may be what happens to the government’s funding of basic science, which in the past has created a pipeline for research now being commercialized by private companies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
When it comes to money, the question isn’t whether human tissues and tissue research will be commercialized.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
In 2025, researchers published around 25,000 papers about 3-D printing of batteries and their components, yet only a handful of startups have even proposed commercializing the technology.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
The current valuation “makes an investment in Cerebras risky, as it is in very early stages of commercializing its product and it is unclear how much of the market they can capture,” Luria said.
From MarketWatch ● May 15, 2026
MiniMax and Knowledge Atlas Technology have an advantage when it comes to commercializing their AI models, the brokerage adds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
Like its pure-play peers, Pasqal is in the early stages of commercializing its systems and has yet to generate a profit.
From Barron's ● Apr. 8, 2026
“Netscape helped to guarantee that these open protocols would not be proprietary by commercializing them for the public,” said Andreessen.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
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.
