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Synonyms

universalize

American  
[yoo-nuh-vur-suh-lahyz] / ˌju nəˈvɜr səˌlaɪz /
especially British, universalise

verb (used with object)

universalized, universalizing
  1. to make universal.


universalize British  
/ ˌjuːnɪˈvɜːsəˌlaɪz /

verb

  1. (tr) to make universal

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms


Etymology

Origin of universalize

First recorded in 1635–45; universal + -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:

But once you universalize your action—and all nonstudents begin to lie—the bookseller will catch on and likely begin to ask for identification.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 15, 2022

This overhaul will, presumably, continue to universalize the Apple enthusiast’s experience across devices, especially in tandem with new continuity-focused features like Universal Control.

From The Verge ● Jun. 6, 2022

In “Telescope,” Alameddine attempts to universalize Mina’s experience on Lesbos, but not out of a callow urge to suggest that her dilemmas — or yours — are comparable to the Syrians’.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2021

In each album, the artist is able to universalize her struggles without giving away all of the personal details.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2021

The Redeemers who overthrew Reconstruction were inclined to retain such segregation practices as had already emerged, but they displayed no apparent disposition to expand or universalize the system.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

In both, a universalized norm gets displayed, yet it’s simultaneously individualized.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025

Having just written an entire article about the dangers of universalized single-cause explanations, though, I would be remiss in putting the blame for dysfunction and discontent entirely on the media.

From Slate ● Dec. 19, 2024

“Mr. Brook, synthesizing all his previous theatrical inventions, did nothing less than attempt to transform Hindu myth into universalized art, accessible to any culture,” theater critic and journalist Margaret Croyden wrote in the Times.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 5, 2022

Yet, if everyone lied—that is if we universalized lying—then we would no longer achieve our desired end.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 15, 2022

Its object was some universalized emotion derived from a natural fact.

From Japanese Prints by Dorothy Pulis Lathrop

It’s the kind of work that you expect to find at a show as noteworthy as the Biennial—powerful, universalizing, transportive—but one that this year is largely an exception to the other items on view.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026

Because the pandemic has affected everyone, we naturally assume that there must be some common experience to be found, that with the disease has come a set of universalizing truths.

From New York Times ● Sep. 6, 2021

The first smart move was universalizing the benefit.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 19, 2021

Just as television has been a powerful force in the popularization of pro football, it has been irreplaceable in the universalizing of the draft.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 23, 2019

It arises from the poetic embodiment and personification of phenomena, the grouping together of all evil and of all good, then imaginatively universalizing the conflict, and carrying it out in idea to its inevitable ultimatum.

From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by William Rounseville Alger

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