categorize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to arrange in categories or classes; classify.
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to describe by labeling or giving a name to; characterize.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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categoristnoun
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categorizationnoun
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decategorizationnoun
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subcategorizationnoun
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decategorizeverb (used with object)
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miscategorizeverb (used with object)
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recategorizeverb (used with object)
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miscategorizedadjective
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uncategorizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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categorizesimple
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categorizessimple
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have categorizedperfect
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has categorizedperfect
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am categorizingprogressive
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are categorizingprogressive
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is categorizingprogressive
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have been categorizingperfect progressive
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has been categorizingperfect progressive
Past
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categorizedsimple
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had categorizedperfect
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was categorizingprogressive
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were categorizingprogressive
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had been categorizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of categorize
First recorded in 1695–1705; categor(y) + -ize
Explanation
If you decided to categorize your wardrobe, you could sort it by type (pants or shirts), or by color. To categorize is to put something into a category. When you think of categorizing things, imagine taking a pile of marbles and putting them into little boxes by color. You are sorting things by how they are alike. Scientists categorize animals and plants by their properties. Doctors categorize illnesses by whether they are caused by viruses or bacteria. In movies, high school students are often categorized as jocks, popular kids, troublemakers, and geeks.
Vocabulary lists containing categorize
Vocabulary of the Common Core
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Content Summary G.2: Regionalization
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Content Summary 5.1: Causes of the Atlantic Revolutions
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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:
“Consumers tend to categorize prices into ranges, so having a price be under $10 can feel different than a price that is $10 and above, even when the actual monetary difference is negligible.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Artists, she noted wryly, often prove difficult to categorize within bureaucratic systems.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
Apps like Rocket Money can link bank accounts, categorize spending habits and flag unused subscriptions.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 31, 2026
This administration is not the first to use AI; federal agencies have been gradually stitching the technology into their work for years, including to translate documents, analyze data and categorize public comments, among other uses.
From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2026
I could picture his excitement at finding a flower he couldn't categorize, growing in some lonely, desolate part of Iraq.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
Just 16% of respondents expressed a state of confidence about their money, a separate bucket that the survey categorizes as financially “fulfilled.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
Wall Street categorizes metals as precious, base/industrial, and maybe “other” for the weird ones.
From Barron's ● Dec. 26, 2025
The International Union for Conservation of Nature red list categorizes lions as vulnerable to extinction.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 22, 2025
Four levels are used to categorizes scores: advanced, proficient, standard nearly met and standard not met.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025
Sister Miriam Joseph* categorizes the relation of the trivial arts as follows: logic is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-known; grammar is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-symbolized; rhetoric is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-communicated.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
Teledyne, often categorized as an industrial-sensing company, is embedded in the counterdrone detection chain through systems already operational in active theaters.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 29, 2026
SpaceX is set to join the Russell 1000 index after Friday’s close, categorized as 90.4% growth and 9.6% value.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
These interpretations may sometimes be relevant, but when they appear reflexively, patients stop feeling understood and start feeling categorized and analyzed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
The play was categorized by the Tony committee as a revival, but it’s really an original drama — one that gave rise to one of the most enthralling productions of the year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
Eventually, they categorized proportions into 10 different classes, with names like the harmonic mean.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
Nearly four-fifths of respondents said that gas prices present some sort of strain, with 34% categorizing it as a major strain and 44% calling it a minor strain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 2026
Apps are great for tracking spending and automatically categorizing — making it easy to see that you spent this much more on food than clothes, or what you’re putting toward subscriptions.
From MarketWatch ● May 14, 2026
I often wonder: Does their categorizing need extend to the subatomic realm?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
That's the lower limit of categorizing objects on the Torino Scale.
From Salon ● Mar. 3, 2025
Stopping before the narrow garage, he sniffed the fumes from Paradise with great sensory pleasure, the protruding hairs in his nostrils analyzing, cataloguing, categorizing, and classifying the distinct odors of hot dog, mustard, and lubricant.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
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.
