publish
Americanverb (used with object)
-
publishes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
published,
past participle, past
-
publishing
present participle
-
to issue (printed or otherwise reproduced textual or graphic material, computer software, etc.) for sale or distribution to the public.
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to issue publicly the work of.
Random House publishes Faulkner.
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to submit (content) online, as to a message board or blog.
I published a comment on her blog post with examples from my own life.
They publish a new webcomic once a month.
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to announce formally or officially; proclaim; promulgate.
- Antonyms:
- conceal
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to make publicly or generally known.
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Law. to communicate (a defamatory statement) to some person or persons other than the person defamed.
verb (used without object)
-
publishes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
published,
past participle, past
-
publishing
present participle
-
to issue newspapers, books, computer software, etc.; engage in publishing.
The new house will start to publish next month.
-
to have one's work published.
She has decided to publish with another house.
verb
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to produce and issue (printed or electronic matter) for distribution and sale
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(intr) to have one's written work issued for publication
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(tr) to announce formally or in public
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(tr) to communicate (defamatory matter) to someone other than the person defamed
to publish a libel
Synonym Usage
See announce.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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publishingnoun
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mispublishedadjective
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nonpublishableadjective
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publishableadjective
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unpublishableadjective
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unpublishedadjective
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well-publishedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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publishsimple
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publishessimple
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have publishedperfect
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has publishedperfect
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am publishingprogressive
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are publishingprogressive
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is publishingprogressive
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have been publishingperfect progressive
-
has been publishingperfect progressive
Past
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publishedsimple
-
had publishedperfect
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was publishingprogressive
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were publishingprogressive
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had been publishingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of publish
1300–50; Middle English publisshen < Anglo-French *publiss-, long stem of *publir, for Middle French publier < Latin pūblicāre to make public
Explanation
Anyone can write something just for themselves. If you publish your writing, it's available to others. For a writer, to publish is about the best thing there is. Like a lot of words, publish is used in a few ways. When a writer publishes six articles, six pieces of his or her writing have been accepted for publication in books or magazines. When a company publishes an article or book, it actually prints it up and sells it to the public. If you write a blog, you can also say that you publish your writing. Or, a teacher can publish a magazine of student writing just for her class.
Vocabulary lists containing publish
Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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TEKS ELAR Academic Vocabulary List (5th-7th grades)
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Writing - Middle School
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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:
A City University of New York law student who helped organize the march agreed to speak with me on the condition I not publish his name.
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026
The decision not to publish a final report has added to tensions that threaten to break apart the charity, which was founded in 1949.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
For the day ahead, the European Central Bank is due to publish minutes from its September meeting, while a handful of Federal Reserve officials speak, including Governor Christopher Waller.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
He later added: "If you happen to know who this Cornell "Jane Doe" is, get in touch and I would be happy to publish her name and identifying information."
From Barron's ● Oct. 3, 2026
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was next to publish the Papers.
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
"This paper publishes a new adult fossil attributed to Homo erectus, DNH 127, providing further confirmation that this species first appeared in southern Africa 2 million years ago."
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
The paper still publishes a print edition, though it is in a tabloid format — smaller in size and more compact.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
Anthropic’s economics will become clearer once the company publishes its initial public offering prospectus.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 14, 2026
“Lords of Serendipity,” which publishes next week, reflects Boyagoda’s commitment to the pursuit of knowledge: “I’m supposed to say I learn more from my students than they do from me, but no,” Boyagoda said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
He publishes a series of articles, in which he describes Tala as a “graveyard of the living dead.”
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
In the poem “Usefulness,” which was originally published in the Yale Review, you speak of how Black Cubans exist at the nexus of two different political agendas: the pro- and anti-Revolution contingents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
Photos published by local French newspaper La Voix du Nord, external showed a small bus with damage to its front and side standing alongside a train, among a crowd of emergency workers.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
As a novelist, Gardam won special acclaim for her Old Filth trilogy, published between 2004 and 2013, about an elderly English barrister and judge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
Obura led a major reassessment of coral health published in Nature on Thursday that reported a sharp deterioration in reef-building species since the last global census in 2008.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
His long-promised games collection, My 60 Memorable Games, was published by Simon & Schuster, and it made an immediate and indelible impression on the chess public.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
He’s also the first to alert Batter that, “In spite of its beauty and grace, the world of poetry publishing is cutthroat.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
"The relevant authorities should have verified these claims with me before releasing or publishing such information," he added.
From Barron's ● Oct. 12, 2026
Bensky wrote McCarthy to express his “admiration for your extremely fine first novel” and to say that Random House was “extremely interested in publishing it.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
Of course, they are not billionaires like Oprah or celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow or Reese Witherspoon, who leveraged their pre-existing stardom into profitable imprimaturs in wellness and publishing.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
She thought often of starting a blog, writing about what she cared about, building it up slowly, and finally publishing her own magazine.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
