verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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summaristnoun
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summarizationnoun
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summarizernoun
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summarizableadjective
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unsummarizableadjective
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unsummarizedadjective
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well-summarizedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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summarizesimple
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summarizessimple
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have summarizedperfect
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has summarizedperfect
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am summarizingprogressive
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are summarizingprogressive
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is summarizingprogressive
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have been summarizingperfect progressive
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has been summarizingperfect progressive
Past
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summarizedsimple
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had summarizedperfect
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was summarizingprogressive
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were summarizingprogressive
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had been summarizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of summarize
Explanation
To summarize something, only include the important stuff. If your teacher asks you to summarize several events from the Civil War, she wants the important facts, not every single detail you can find. When you summarize something, you write or tell the general idea and only the most important points. It's a skill we often use in school or at work, but even in our personal lives, we summarize: like when a friend asks what the book you're reading is about, or someone wants to know about your recent vacation. You don't tell them every single detail, talking yourself to exhaustion. Instead, you summarize — describing just the key events that "sum up" the experience.
Vocabulary lists containing summarize
The SAT: Language of the Test, List 1
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The Language of Standardized Tests, List 1
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PARCC: Language of the Test (Grade7)
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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:
With half of 2026 having already flown by, it is time to summarize which stocks have performed best so far this year.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
The company said the suite of tools can give any agent —an AI which can work autonomously— the ability to synthesize and summarize scientific knowledge, evaluate results, and then reason and execute the next actions.
From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026
Employees use it to summarize meetings, draft emails and generate first cuts of presentations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
To summarize, she’s left herself wide open to a challenge.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 23, 2026
More generally, a modifier can dangle when its implied subject is the writer and the reader, as in To summarize and In order to start the motor in the examples above.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Yeah, the skit you used of him saying “I’m just a man from the ghetto” on the song really summarizes that.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026
"Our work shows that both mitochondrial aging and broader systemic aging are, at least in part, modifiable. If we understand the underlying processes, we may be able to take targeted countermeasures," summarizes Dr. Ermolaeva.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 11, 2026
In totalitarian societies, she summarizes, “either you are destroyed by conforming to the regime, or you are destroyed through non-compliance.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
Savouri summarizes the problem as “analogue economics in a digital monetary world.”
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 15, 2026
Table 5.1 summarizes, for these and other areas of local domestication, some of the best-known crops and animals and the earliest known dates of domestication.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
That behavior appears to conflict with Newton's third law, the famous action and reaction principle often summarized as "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
From Science Daily ● Jun. 16, 2026
Alfonsi’s parting words to the Columbia Journalism Review perfectly summarized the nightmare unfolding at CBS: “The arrogance, cruelty, and incompetence is stunning.”
From Salon ● Jun. 1, 2026
Those allegations were summarized in a document prepared by the FBI last summer and in an FBI presentation of prominent names in the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases, the DOJ files show.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 25, 2026
It can be summarized as earnings before interest and taxes, divided by sales.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 23, 2026
However, a veterinarian in Bainbridge, Georgia, Dr. Otis L. Poitevint, who was called upon to treat many of the affected animals, has summarized his reasons for attributing the deaths to the insecticide as follows.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
“My AI is in the room during Zoom calls with clients. It’s taking notes, summarizing the meeting and writing follow-up emails.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
The Fed released a much sparser statement summarizing recent economic developments that avoided any hint on its next move.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026
The White House typically releases physician-written memos summarizing presidential physicals, translating full medical records into condensed clinical findings for public release.
From Salon ● May 31, 2026
It can read your Google Drive and write emails in Gmail, making it the best choice for summarizing your own files or integrating email correspondence.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 25, 2026
Until September he had been diligent if not dedicated, summarizing chapters, outlining arguments on pads of yellow lined paper.
From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
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.
