popularize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
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to make popular; make attractive to the general public
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to make or cause to become easily understandable or acceptable
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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popularizationnoun
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popularizernoun
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repopularizationnoun
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depopularizeverb (used with object)
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repopularizeverb (used with object)
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antipopularizationadjective
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semipopularizedadjective
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unpopularizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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popularizesimple
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popularizessimple
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have popularizedperfect
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has popularizedperfect
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am popularizingprogressive
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are popularizingprogressive
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is popularizingprogressive
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have been popularizingperfect progressive
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has been popularizingperfect progressive
Past
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popularizedsimple
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had popularizedperfect
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was popularizingprogressive
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were popularizingprogressive
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had been popularizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of popularize
Vocabulary lists containing popularize
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:
Japanese pitchers migrating to MLB, including Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, have helped popularize the splitter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
Strategy, formerly known as Microstrategy, helped popularize the concept when it started buying large amounts of bitcoin in 2020.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 20, 2026
Early successes in helping define and popularize the personal computer were followed by a troubled adolescence that almost proved fatal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
Early advertising campaigns helped popularize terms like "litterbug," while today the focus has shifted to "chemical recycling," promoted by industry as a way to break plastics down into their basic building blocks.
From Barron's ● Jan. 22, 2026
Pilar Ternera was the one who contributed most to popularize that mystification when she conceived the trick of reading the past in cards as she had read the future before.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ultimately, gaming may well end up being what popularizes the metaverse.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2022
Since then more than 15 million people have watched the documentary on Upworthy, which aggregates and popularizes videos and other online content.
From BusinessWeek ● Aug. 1, 2013
He’s been on his own now for a couple of decades, a philosopher-showman with an immense following whose art popularizes Post-Minimalism’s strategies with the use of big, accessible themes.
From New York Times ● Nov. 19, 2010
A man invents a vacuum cleaner and ... a co-conspirator popularizes Venetian blinds, so there will be something else for the vacuum cleaner to do in a jiffy.
From Time Magazine Archive
Chiefly, at present, she is holding classes, giving parlor-talks, what-not, in which she paraphrases and popularizes the ideas of her leaders.
From The Preliminaries And Other Stories by Comer, Cornelia A. P.
Ranch dressing was pioneered in Alaska, popularized on a dude ranch in California and perfected by food scientists before it spread all over the nation and on every food imaginable.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Its 2020 debut album, “PDE,” experimented more with the prickly, sad sierreño sound popularized by acts like Eslabon Armado and DannyLux — as well as trap-infused corridos tumbados with a thumping tololoche.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
"Nothing excites Trump more than the power of saying 'you're fired,'" Litman said, referencing the catchphrase Trump popularized in his former role as a reality competition show host.
From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026
The Fitbit, launched in 2009, popularized that concept and then was acquired by Google a decade later.
From MarketWatch ● May 28, 2026
Before the war, people raised a thumb to say “One love” to each other, an expression popularized by the love and influence of reggae music.
From "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah
Jonas also likes the 1920s play “R.U.R” by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek, which is credited with popularizing the word “robot.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
Meanwhile, the investment firm Vanguard has been credited with popularizing low-cost and diversified index funds.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 15, 2025
Kalshi is slowly popularizing markets for things you’d have never thought to bet on five years ago, at least not at scale.
From Slate ● Dec. 10, 2025
Like it or not, fashion has become a key vehicle for popularizing art and design history.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2025
The software industry did the first by creating and popularizing a protocol known as SMTP—simple mail transfer protocol—which enabled the exchange of e-mail messages between heterogeneous computer systems.
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.
