valorize

American  

[val-uh-rahyz] / ˈvæl əˌraɪz /

especially British, valorise

verb (used with object)

valorized, valorizing

1. to provide for the maintaining of the value or price of (a commercial commodity) by a government's purchasing the commodity at the fixed price or by its making special loans to the producers.

---

valorize British  

/ ˈvæləˌraɪz /

verb

1. (tr) to fix and maintain an artificial price for (a commodity) by governmental action

---

Other Word Forms

• valorization
  noun

---

Etymology

Origin of valorize

First recorded in 1905–10; from Late Latin valor “worth” ( see valor) + -ize

---

Explanation

To valorize something is to emphasize or enhance its value or importance. Some filmmakers valorize war, making it look noble and exciting on screen. As one who loves to lounge around and take frequent naps, you might feel misunderstood by a culture that valorizes hard work at the expense of rest and relaxation. Economists use the word valorize in a different way, to describe what a government does when it intervenes in a market to fix, increase, or maintain the prices of goods or services or the value of its currency. Valorize comes from the Late Latin valorem, "value or worth," and a root meaning "be strong."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

valorize valorized valorizing

Sander does not romanticize, valorize or flatter them: The even lighting comes from an overcast sky; they are dressed in dark suits and hats, one smokes a cigarette, and each sports a cane.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026

It didn’t valorize or glamorize the economic downturn; it just portrayed it in the way that the people who lived there experienced it.

From Salon ● Jan. 27, 2026

"In general chemistry we learn that carbon dioxide reacts with hydroxide to form carbonate. That's undesired because it depletes the molecule we want to valorize," said Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering Chibueze Amanchukwu.

From Science Daily ● May 24, 2024

“He’s a man under extraordinary circumstances who actually did try to do the right thing. We should applaud it, but we shouldn’t valorize it.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2022

How could the schools valorize men and women whose values society actively scorned?

From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

On top of that, the Nashville music industry was already established, and it valorized the professional songwriter as a key part of a well-oiled machine.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

By rooting “Cowboy Carter” in the kind of hand-played sounds the academy has long valorized, Beyoncé almost seems to be daring the organization to withhold the award for a fifth time.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2025

Many argue that Gandhi was excessively valorized — and the contributions of militant leaders overlooked — in the decades after 1947, when his party, the Indian National Congress, dominated politics and shaped the nation’s mythmaking.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 12, 2022

Many in the outside world have valorized Anabaptists’ beliefs in forgiveness.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 28, 2021

A federal loan of £9,000,000, with 4,535,000 bags of valorized coffee as collateral, was placed in London and New York in May, 1922.

From All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

Without valorizing her, Ms. Saxton showed that Mary Washington was very much a person of her time, and that her life was a window into the experiences of women in 18th-century Virginia.

From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2023

Instead of valorizing military might and shows of strength, the story has taken great pains to focus instead on the importance of diplomacy, political skills, debate, and yes, boring old bureaucratic administration.

From Salon ● May 21, 2019

But “Marie, Dancing Still” also can go mawkish, valorizing its flawed characters into heroes and glossing the demimonde grit in an era when everything was not beautiful at the ballet.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 6, 2019

It's one of the reasons I love country so much: More than other music, it carries that #WADS realism, valorizing middle-class lives—marriages, kids, divorces, parents’ deaths—by dramatizing them, in gory detail, and with wit.

From Slate ● Dec. 26, 2012

If Miller presents that as a self- valorizing stretch, viewers may bristle just as much at his choice to make “Foxcatcher” a parable of Cold War-era late capitalism.

From Washington Post

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---