stylize

American  

[stahy-lahyz] / ˈstaɪ laɪz /

especially British, stylise

verb (used with object)

stylized, stylizing

1. to design in or cause to conform to a particular style, as of representation or treatment in art; conventionalize.

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stylize British  

/ ˈstaɪlaɪz /

verb

1. (tr) to give a conventional or established stylistic form to

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Other Word Forms

• nonstylization
  noun
• stylization
  noun
• stylizer
  noun
• nonstylized
  adjective
• unstylized
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of stylize

First recorded in 1895–1900; style + -ize

Explanation

The verb stylize means to represent something according to a particular format or structure, rather than the rules of nature. You won't recognize yourself in these photographs because the photographer used a computer program and stylized everyone to look like stick figures. Stylize is from the word style, which is itself from the Latin word stilus, which means a set manner of expression or writing. Other words from the same root word include stylization, stylus, and stiletto. You may prefer your detective movies to be realistic, rather than the stylized works of film noir.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

stylize stylized stylizing

The database then served as graphic inspiration, allowing the computer to stylize the shots of the cities where the film takes place, accelerating production that would otherwise have taken years.

From Barron's ● Mar. 10, 2026

“The Western was born at the beginning of the century with cinema. What Hollywood did was create the American epic and also stylize their reality,” says Almodóvar, speaking alongside Hawke.

From Seattle Times ● May 23, 2023

“I think we were homing in on Leyendecker because of his ability to stylize, to make characters feel monumental,” he says.

From The Verge ● Sep. 2, 2021

They stylize things and it was a movie for fun.

From Slate ● Aug. 10, 2021

I don’t mean books about autism, but, rather, novels that include characters who have autism or that use symptoms of the disorder as a metaphor or plot device, or to stylize language.

From New York Times ● Feb. 4, 2019

Another place where Dulli’s vocals are at the forefront is on “My Lover,” where the lead vocal has a stylized texture that feels like Dulli even if it doesn’t sound like him.

From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2026

He used those reference images for the AI character and transforms them into a stylized person, with a personality, backstory and visual details.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2026

That symbolism has only become more visible in recent months amid renewed attention on gold Trump statues, AI-generated heroic imagery and other forms of highly stylized political branding circulating online.

From Salon ● May 10, 2026

It is clothed and unclothed; decorated and distorted; idealized, stylized, politicized.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026

Every sage who took the vows was given a mark just above her wrist: a stylized symbol slightly larger than a gold coin.

From "Huntress" by Malinda Lo

Nick was playing with a professional team called TH3 NSAN3Z — stylizing theirs — when they won the Gears of War 2 national championship in 2009 and the team walked home $40,000 richer.

From The Verge ● Apr. 22, 2021

There’s a little Scorsese and a little Ritchie in his fleet-footed stylizing, which whisks audiences through a caper and its attendant double-crosses with a roving, restless camera.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 27, 2020

It’s stylizing a thing that, at some unconscious level, you’re afraid of.

From New York Times ● Aug. 29, 2019

And by stylizing the combat, Robbins has made it especially suspenseful and tragic.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 12, 2019

In fact, human culture is very largely the selection, the rearrangement, the tracing of patterns upon, and the stylizing of, what William James called "the random irradiations and resettlements of our ideas."

From Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann