synthesize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to form (a material or abstract entity) by combining parts or elements (opposed to analyze).
to synthesize a statement.
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Chemistry. to combine (constituent elements) into a single or unified entity.
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to treat synthetically.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to combine or cause to combine into a whole
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(tr) to produce by synthesis
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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synthesizationnoun
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resynthesizeverb (used with object)
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nonsynthesizedadjective
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unsynthesizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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synthesizesimple
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synthesizessimple
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have synthesizedperfect
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has synthesizedperfect
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am synthesizingprogressive
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are synthesizingprogressive
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is synthesizingprogressive
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have been synthesizingperfect progressive
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has been synthesizingperfect progressive
Past
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synthesizedsimple
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had synthesizedperfect
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was synthesizingprogressive
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were synthesizingprogressive
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had been synthesizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of synthesize
First recorded in 1820–30; synthes(is) + -ize
Explanation
When you synthesize, you combine two or more things to create something more complex. It's becoming more common for doctors these days to synthesize Eastern and Western approaches to medicine. While synthesize was first used in 1830, scientists and inventors were doing what it means long before that, mixing stuff together to create new materials and products. Medical researchers chemically synthesize chemicals every day in the lab, hoping to create the next wonder drug. When you write a research paper on a given topic, you must find and synthesize information related to that topic, so you can understand what it means and structure an argument in support of your thesis.
Vocabulary lists containing synthesize
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Argumentative Writing
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Vocabulary of the Common Core
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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:
Clinicians and patients can use AI to collect and synthesize every bit of scientific data on the planet to help make a diagnosis or a treatment plan.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 27, 2026
Rather than selling mass-market step counters, they market premium products that synthesize biometrics like heart rate variability and skin temperature into actionable outputs: early illness warnings, recovery scores and training recommendations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Notably, similar approaches are widely used today in laboratories to synthesize artificial nanozymes.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 10, 2026
The agents are meant to help those companies’ employees build presentations, synthesize webs of data sets and filings, build financial models, and complete other tasks, Anthropic said on Tuesday.
From Barron's ● May 5, 2026
All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of them yield important vegetable products such as rubber which in colder climates it is necessary to synthesize by comparatively expensive methods.
From "1984" by George Orwell
Vargas Llosa intersperses the story with nimbly delivered informational chapters explaining the history and influences of the Peruvian vals, or waltz, which synthesizes European and indigenous musical styles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
The platform’s AI then synthesizes this information and generates a robust appeal letter that incorporates data from peer-reviewed scientific evidence, legal precedents where insurers have lost in court and relevant policy.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 21, 2025
WeCount synthesizes the data and creates imputations for the clinics that don't send their data.
From Salon ● May 15, 2024
When a body is injured, it synthesizes fibrin at the site of the wound.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 11, 2024
Parks Canada is also taking advantage of another technological development called stereophotogrammetry, which produces pictures in pairs and then synthesizes hundreds of these pairings to produce extraordinarily clear images of whatever object is being studied.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
The other products under discussion on Friday are epitalon and semax, which were both discovered and synthesized in Russia.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
It was first synthesized and tested in the late 1980s in Russia, where it can be used for research purposes.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
Sports are ideal for new video and communication technologies, as athletic performance is measured by statistics, and that data can be tabulated, synthesized and repurposed for viewers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
At its essence, AI sees patterns that defy human comprehension—and that of most other technologies—to quickly create powerful synthesized knowledge.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
There were some fuzzy data using sea urchins, interpreted as a transformation of DNA into RNA, but I preferred to trust other experiments showing that DNA molecules, once synthesized, are very very stable.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
It’s well to remember that in the early days of synthesizing instruments, violins with perfect vibrato sounded especially fake, until tiny errors generated by chance were added to the sine waves.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
In a new study published in Nature Electronics, a Harvard led research team unveiled a silicon chip capable of synthesizing 64 different DNA sequences at the same time.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 9, 2026
But Socolow came off as masterful at synthesizing energy challenges and environmental concerns, and Pacala brought deep knowledge of how carbon moves between Earth’s atmosphere, land and oceans.
From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2026
“If you’re synthesizing the stuff that yields biological life and viruses, we’re asking you to screen to see whether it is dangerous in some way,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
During reproduction, the helices separate, assisted by a special unwinding protein, each synthesizing an identical copy of the other from nucleotide building blocks floating about nearby in the viscous liquid of the cell nucleus.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
