sensitize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to render sensitive.
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Photography. to render (a film or the like) sensitive to light or other forms of radiant energy.
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Immunology. to render sensitive to an antigenic substance.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to make or become sensitive
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(tr) to render (an individual) sensitive to a drug, allergen, etc
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(tr) photog to make (a material) sensitive to light or to other actinic radiation, esp to light of a particular colour, by coating it with a photographic emulsion often containing special chemicals, such as dyes
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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antisensitizernoun
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sensitizationnoun
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sensitizernoun
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oversensitizeverb
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resensitizeverb (used with object)
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unsensitizeverb (used with object)
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antisensitizingadjective
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nonsensitizedadjective
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nonsensitizingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sensitizesimple
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sensitizessimple
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have sensitizedperfect
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has sensitizedperfect
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am sensitizingprogressive
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are sensitizingprogressive
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is sensitizingprogressive
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have been sensitizingperfect progressive
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has been sensitizingperfect progressive
Past
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sensitizedsimple
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had sensitizedperfect
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was sensitizingprogressive
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were sensitizingprogressive
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had been sensitizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sensitize
First recorded in 1855–60; sensit(ive) + -ize
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:
A well-known figure in the news in Rio, Moscatelli calls the capybaras by human names to sensitize humans to them.
From Slate ● May 27, 2026
“What this bill will do is help educate and sensitize electeds, judges, police, teachers, media and civil society in to what constitutes antisemitism,” Berman said.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 28, 2024
In patients with ATM alterations, which should sensitize tumors to ATR inhibitors, the ORR increased to 26.1%.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 13, 2024
Others, like Odisha, have supplemented legal efforts by setting up memorials to victims at police stations in a bid to sensitize people.
From New York Times ● May 13, 2023
Sometimes she would go into the workshop and help Arcadio sensitize the daguerreotype plates with an efficiency and a tenderness that ended up by confusing him.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The allergy -- commonly if inaccurately called the "red meat allergy" -- sensitizes people to a particular sugar, alpha-gal, found in mammalian meat.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 9, 2023
“This sort of display sensitizes the public to issues that were originally hidden.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2021
“I suppose all the mythology sensitizes you, prepares you to be impressed, to feel awe.”
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2019
A skillful installation sensitizes you to myriad variations in the character of works that only at first glance appear not to differ much except in size, from minuscule to monumental.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 11, 2018
Cancer may sometimes require the complementary action of two chemicals, one of which sensitizes the cell or tissue so that it may later, under the action of another or promoting agent, develop true malignancy.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Once sensitized, people may experience allergic symptoms after eating foods such as beef, pork, or lamb.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 17, 2025
“Throughout California, throughout the West, throughout communities that have had wildfire experience, we are particularly primed and sensitized to that news,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2025
The authors of these books regarded the fact that other people had become sensitized in their language use as at best a personal affront and at worst a conspiracy.
From Slate ● Jan. 5, 2025
A positive result signals the presence of IgE antibody, which "means you've become sensitized to the substance," he said, "but it doesn't mean you will manifest any allergic symptoms."
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2023
Since one cannot bespeak until one has been bespoken, until the telepathic potentiality has been sensitized by one clear reception, I had to get through to him first.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
These efforts required sensitizing all employees to their own personal prejudices and offending practices.
From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2025
The findings also encourage the development of drugs that target ARID1A and related proteins as a way of sensitizing other tumors to immunotherapy.
From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024
"I don’t know what the solution is, but I suspect that over sensitizing ppl to arbitrary characteristics like skin colour may be doing more harm than good," he continued.
From Fox News ● May 25, 2021
It includes additional pulmonary surfactant genes that the ray-finned fishes lack, as well as DNA for specifying five toes, connecting nerves to limb muscles, and for sensitizing the brain to react fast.
From Science Magazine ● Feb. 10, 2021
Turning his back on the affluent trappings of Duke, Farmer began sensitizing himself to the centuries-old plight of the the poor.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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.
