revolutionize
Americanverb (used with object)
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revolutionizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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revolutionized,
past participle, past
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revolutionizing
present participle
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to bring about a revolution in; effect a radical change in.
to revolutionize petroleum refining methods.
-
to subject to a political revolution.
verb
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to bring about a radical change in
science has revolutionized civilization
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to inspire or infect with revolutionary ideas
they revolutionized the common soldiers
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to cause a revolution in (a country, etc)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
revolutionizesimple
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revolutionizessimple
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have revolutionizedperfect
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has revolutionizedperfect
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am revolutionizingprogressive
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are revolutionizingprogressive
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is revolutionizingprogressive
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have been revolutionizingperfect progressive
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has been revolutionizingperfect progressive
Past
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revolutionizedsimple
-
had revolutionizedperfect
-
was revolutionizingprogressive
-
were revolutionizingprogressive
-
had been revolutionizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of revolutionize
First recorded in 1790–1800; revolution + -ize
Explanation
Revolutionize, a verb, means "to make a major change," like in the 1990s, when the Internet revolutionized how people communicated, got information and even did their jobs. Things were never the same again. Use revolutionize to describe something that is completely transformed. Originally, it meant "to bring about sweeping political change," like people who band together and fight to revolutionize a nation, with the end result being a new party in power or new philosophies about things like land ownership or tax collection put in place. In time, it also came to mean even nonpolitical change, like the digital music player, which revolutionized how people get and listen to music.
Vocabulary lists containing revolutionize
100 SAT words Beginning with "R"
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"Remarks at the Dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center" by John F. Kennedy
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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:
She immersed herself in the movement to improve driving safety, and now the Hawthorne Democrat is writing controversial legislation that could revolutionize how auto insurance rates are set for many California drivers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
"Altermagnets could completely revolutionize the way we transport information, but to confirm if this elegant theory is true, we need experiments that identify altermagnets and confirm they behave the way scientists predict."
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026
These tests are “a ground breaking technology which is going to revolutionize cancer care across the board,” says Dr. Joyce A. O’Shaughnessy, chair, breast cancer research at the Baylor Scott & White Sammons Cancer Center.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
SpaceX pioneered reusable rockets and built Starlink, a space-based broadband service poised to revolutionize mobile connectivity.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
In the following decades this new understanding of space and time was to revolutionize our view of the universe.
From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking
"This research revolutionizes our understanding of the jugal bone in snake and non-snake lizards," said Michael Caldwell, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and a co-author on the study.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 24, 2026
Maybe that’s the real magic of a tool like this: not that it revolutionizes your cooking, but that it makes the most ordinary meal feel new again.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2025
The same model they used in Georgia revolutionizes presidential campaigning, with Rosalynn as Jimmy’s top surrogate.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 19, 2023
In 1988, N.W.A revolutionizes music and pop culture with their brutally honest depiction of life in Southern Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2019
That wonderful test of seeing every event of life from the point of view of the will of God simply transforms and revolutionizes the entire scale of human experience.
From The Life Radiant by Lilian Whiting
While Brooks served his life sentence, the criminal justice system was being revolutionized through the introduction of DNA evidence and, with it, proof that innocent people had been convicted.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2026
Erbstein revolutionized soccer in Italy before dying in 1949, along with the entire Torino team, when their plane crashed into a hilltop outside Turin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026
Founded by Musk in 2002, SpaceX revolutionized the commercial space industry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
Millions of Americans have tried the drugs, which have revolutionized the way physicians treat weight loss, but personalizing who gets which drugs is still a long way off — if it ever happens.
From MarketWatch ● May 18, 2026
The McDonald brothers’ Speedee Service System revolutionized the restaurant business.
From "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal" by Eric Schlosser
The Walkman came out in 1979, revolutionizing how people listen to music.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
The show could help humanize tech titans, even those known for revolutionizing artificial intelligence and defense tech, said Mike Solana, Founders Fund’s Chief Marketing Officer, who hosts and narrates the game.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
Ted Turner created CNN in 1980, revolutionizing the way America, and the world, got their news, and then went on to become one of the most prominent business leaders and philanthropists of his era.
From Barron's ● May 6, 2026
"For all the talk about how AI is revolutionizing science, there are very few examples where something fundamentally new has been found directly by an AI system," Nemenman says.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 23, 2026
But Bertillonage was already being displaced by a more efficient method of identification that was revolutionizing the world of scientific detection: fingerprinting.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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.
