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.

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valorize British  

/ ˈvæləˌraɪz /

verb

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

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Other Word Forms

• valorization
  noun

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Etymology

Origin of valorize

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

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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

He doesn’t need more tournaments nor endorsements nor any of us to further valorize his athletic accomplishments.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026

“Monuments are intended to valorize battles and generals,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 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

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

If they learn at all, they don't learn until they're older, so they've already idealized this valorized idea of America in their head and they can't comport the two things.

From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2023

That’s why it’s so important to not have a cultural figure valorized by one point of view, the idea that we can decide what’s good art, or what’s valuable.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2023

“They may not be valorized as good design, but people’s attitudes will change.”

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 23, 2023

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

Institutions must take account of race, for sure, but without valorizing it to an extent that ends up compounding racist stereotyping itself.

From Salon ● Nov. 10, 2024

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

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

But, as in the similarly revisionist bagatelle “Damsel” that came out this summer, here the filmmakers seem more interested in critiquing traditional macho notions of ambition and impunity than valorizing them.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 25, 2018

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

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