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:
Corey Seemiller told me every generation tends to romanticize the version of young adulthood it experienced while quietly forgetting the parts that weren’t so glamorous.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 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
Indian elites romanticize the idea of India as an independent tech power.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 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
She typically acts unbothered, but on this vulnerable track, she sheds a little light on her lover girl personality as she romanticizes all the ways she wants to build a life with a new man.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2026
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
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
“It very much romanticizes the idea of what not only Maori are going through but many Indigenous cultures around the world and almost downplays the suffering,” both from the past and present, Poole said.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 20, 2022
He misses Caroline terribly, and romanticizes her as the ideal woman.
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
The Keith painting is “quintessential California, a romanticized view of the Sierra Nevada range. William Keith, the painter, was friends with John Muir,” Falcone said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 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
I also love the hot chocolate, and the tuna melt is a special, more romanticized version of the classic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 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
A sort of mystical fairy tale, it romanticized and celebrated the simple life of German farmers living harmoniously with nature on their German soil.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
"We are not romanticizing poverty. We want to change the prejudice that exists in people's minds."
From Barron's ● Mar. 10, 2026
As Ms. Low says, many women need to “stop romanticizing work” and “remember that your employer will never love you back.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2025
Those who support the bans say they are necessary to keep the next generation of young people from romanticizing violence, and to honor those who have lost loved ones to bloodshed.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2025
“I think that romanticizing sick artists perpetuates this thing that’s super negative, especially for women,” Gaga said.
From Salon ● Mar. 12, 2025
“It sounds nice. But do you think you arc romanticizing? ‘The restless grey sea’?”
From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins
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.
