romanticize
Americanverb (used with object)
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romanticizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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romanticized,
past participle, past
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romanticizing
present participle
verb (used without object)
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romanticizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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romanticized,
past participle, past
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romanticizing
present participle
verb
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(intr) to think or act in a romantic way
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(tr) to interpret according to romantic precepts
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to make or become romantic, as in style
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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romanticizesimple
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romanticizessimple
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have romanticizedperfect
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has romanticizedperfect
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am romanticizingprogressive
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are romanticizingprogressive
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is romanticizingprogressive
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have been romanticizingperfect progressive
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has been romanticizingperfect progressive
Past
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romanticizedsimple
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had romanticizedperfect
-
was romanticizingprogressive
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were romanticizingprogressive
-
had been romanticizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of romanticize
Explanation
To romanticize is either to put a positive spin on something that wasn’t great or to behave in a romantic way. If you’re sea sick on a cruise and spend the whole time clutching the railing but later say it was the best trip ever, you have romanticized your experience. To romanticize can mean to act in a way that lends itself to romance, such as by buying flowers or making goo-goo eyes. A more common meaning has less to do with romance, but also involves wearing rose-colored glasses. If you romanticize war, you're making it sound like a glorious, beautiful thing. To romanticize is to interpret things that are not glamorous in a glamorous way.
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:
He hopes the early ’80s nostalgia will resonate not just for those who experienced it firsthand, but for young people now who romanticize a smartphone-free existence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
The old common-law “hue and cry” is not a model to romanticize; it could be coercive, punitive, and exclusionary.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
But lately, I’ve been thinking about something: Everybody wants to romanticize the pantry.
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026
“It’s easy to romanticize it, to say, ‘I want to live among the locals.’
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
It is important to keep in mind, though, that many rappers and hip-hop artists do not aim to glorify or romanticize gangsta life or culture.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
The comedy premiered in 2015 on the CW and is about a character so desperate to feel happy that she romanticizes a relationship she had as a teenager at summer camp.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2025
Gurr speaks with a mix of humor, directness and curiousity, eager to share stories but also not someone who overly romanticizes them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2025
Poet romanticizes her career, and her career is her everything, and that stays really true for the past, present and future.
From Salon ● May 24, 2023
“And if it romanticizes adolescence through the weekly trials and triumphs of its teenage hero,” he wrote, “at least it does so in more ambitious, inquisitive and authentic ways than the average TV teeny-bop.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2023
He misses Caroline terribly, and romanticizes her as the ideal woman.
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
He’s not unaware that Meyers’ mostly 20-something male friends have — like many — romanticized the gritty abandon of lower Manhattan’s bygone literary scene and perhaps Ed’s tenuous place in it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
By threading Celan’s poems through the lived record, Ms. Arno restores a proud, wounded, flirtatious, multilingual man often romanticized by reverence.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
While home swapping is romanticized in movies like “The Holiday,” the idea of actually letting a stranger stay in your house while you’re not there might feel daunting.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 19, 2026
Never mind that the romanticized vision of Mayberry hasn’t existed for decades, if it ever did.
From Salon ● Feb. 10, 2026
In the same vein, all the heroic portraits of the great men were romanticized distortions.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
The just-quirky-girls-at-a-country-club mood does eventually turn darker, but the musical, like some other works of art about mental illness, often falls into the trap of romanticizing it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
"We are not romanticizing poverty. We want to change the prejudice that exists in people's minds."
From Barron's ● Mar. 10, 2026
The historic Egmont was a Flemish general, a hero to his people in the Netherlands who attempts to serve the 16th century Spanish emperor, Philip II, and rife for Goethe’s romanticizing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2026
No doubt there's a long history of Americans romanticizing criminals, going back at least to Jesse James or Billy the Kid, who became icons of the Wild West.
From Salon ● May 31, 2024
How ridiculous that he’d still be romanticizing her in these final hours.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
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.
