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Showing results for popularize. Search instead for repopularized.
Synonyms

popularize

American  
[pop-yuh-luh-rahyz] / ˈpɒp jə ləˌraɪz /
especially British, popularise

verb (used with object)

  • popularizes,
    present (3rd person singular)
  • popularized,
    past participle,  past
  • popularizing
    present participle
  1. to make popular.

    to popularize a dance.


popularize British  
/ ˈpɒpjʊləˌraɪz /

verb

  1. to make popular; make attractive to the general public

  2. to make or cause to become easily understandable or acceptable

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future


Etymology

Origin of popularize

First recorded in 1585–95; popular + -ize


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:

Social media and professional sport have helped popularize everything from ice baths and compression garments to massage and recovery supplements.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026

Ben Rosen, an influential Wall Street analyst and venture capitalist who helped popularize personal computers, died on Aug. 23 at the age of 93.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

Sports columnist Bill Simmons, who helped popularize the format, recently moved his podcasts to the platform in January as part of a deal with Spotify.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2026

Since Robinhood helped popularize commission-free trading, introducing a new generation of investors to buying and selling securities on their smartphones, trading volumes in U.S. equity options have exploded.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 24, 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

Under Johnson's leadership, Fidelity popularizes the mutual funds that bring millions of small investors into the stock market, in time for the 12-year bull run that adds more than $1 trillion to the national wealth.

From Time Magazine Archive

On the other hand, the man who plods with scientific details should not look with contempt upon the man who popularizes the results of technical study by giving it an attractive literary setting.

From Our Bird Comrades by Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

The images date back as far as the 1840s when the Daguerrotype process that popularized photography and made images printed on silver-plated copper sheets common keepsakes.

From Barron's ● Nov. 1, 2026

Over the past year, the “TACO” trade has evolved from just a humorous acronym, first popularized by a columnist with the Financial Times, into a major force in markets.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026

The “forward-deployed engineer” model, popularized by Palantir, has become the go-to answer for turning AI investments into real business results, with OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and AWS all rolling out similar programs recently.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

Hosts of spiritual-minded sorts called it home: Alan Watts popularized Zen Buddhism in the ’60s, alongside poets Gary Snyder and Kenneth Rexroth.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

The terminology we now use to express this distinction, between primary and secondary qualities, was introduced by Boyle in 1666 and popularized by Locke in 1689.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

In the present-day AI boom, OpenAI is generally credited with popularizing the MTS, Jayden Clark, the Silicon Valley culture commentator behind the viral X account @creatine_cycle, told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch ● May 9, 2026

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

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

Digby, a friend of Hobbes and a founding member of the Royal Society, played a crucial role in popularizing the word ‘fact’.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

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