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

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

In the future, we may be able to stylize the interior with our own lighting, videoscapes, and soundtracks.

From Slate ● Mar. 15, 2018

What once would have required a professional production team can now be created and distributed in hours, allowing supporters and campaigns to produce highly stylized portrayals of political figures at scale.

From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026

The earliest Olympic mascot wasn’t formally a mascot, but Schuss, a stylized Z-shaped figure on skis.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 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

He lay the key on the nightstand, then frowned and picked up the stylized iron wheel and put it back around his neck before snuffing the lamp and crawling into bed.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

It was Jolicoeur’s innovation to raid their dads’ closets for bell bottoms and straighten the legs, not to mention stylizing their asymmetrical haircuts.

From New York Times ● Feb. 13, 2023

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

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

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 12, 2019

Williams’s performance is just as confident: you can hear Blige’s gospel–R. & B. stylizing in her harmonies, from the iconic opening, “Boy you should know thaaat,” to its deep-digging pre-chorus, “to have you, hold you, squeeze youuu.”

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 4, 2016

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 Lippmann, Walter