verbalize

American  

[vur-buh-lahyz] / ˈvɜr bəˌlaɪz /

especially British, verbalise

verb (used with object)

• verbalizes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• verbalized,
  past participle,  past
• verbalizing
  present participle

1. to express in words.

   He couldn't verbalize his feelings.

2. Grammar. to convert into a verb.

   to verbalize “butter” into “to butter.”

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verb (used without object)

• verbalizes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• verbalized,
  past participle,  past
• verbalizing
  present participle

1. to use many words; be verbose.

2. to express something verbally.

verbalize British  

/ ˈvɜːbəˌlaɪz /

verb

1. to express (an idea, feeling, etc) in words

2. to change (any word that is not a verb) into a verb or derive a verb from (any word that is not a verb)

3. (intr) to be verbose

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• verbalization
  noun
• verbalizer
  noun
• nonverbalized
  adjective
• unverbalized
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• verbalizing
  present
• verbalized
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• verbalize
  simple
• verbalizes
  simple
• have verbalized
  perfect
• has verbalized
  perfect
• am verbalizing
  progressive
• are verbalizing
  progressive
• is verbalizing
  progressive
• have been verbalizing
  perfect progressive
• has been verbalizing
  perfect progressive

Past

• verbalized
  simple
• had verbalized
  perfect
• was verbalizing
  progressive
• were verbalizing
  progressive
• had been verbalizing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will verbalize
  simple
• will have verbalized
  perfect
• will be verbalizing
  progressive
• will have been verbalizing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of verbalize

First recorded in 1600–10; verbal + -ize; compare French verbaliser

Explanation

To verbalize something is to put it into words. If you need to get into the bathroom desperately, and the person in front of you hasn’t noticed your agitation, you’ll probably have to verbalize it, and quickly! Verbalize comes from the word verbal, which describes spoken words. If people are extremely verbose, that means they talk all the time. Very shy people don't verbalize their feelings very often. Verbalize can also mean articulate, or clarify. If I’m working for you on a construction site, and you yell “SLAB!” at me, I might have to ask you to verbalize what you mean by “SLAB!”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

verbalize verbalizes verbalized verbalizing

“If you’re able to intellectualize that information and verbalize, this isn’t for you,” she says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2025

Guilt and shame can make these experiences difficult to verbalize or talk about, Mathai said.

From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2025

In a trade that is preposterous to even verbalize, much less actually complete, the Lakers sent superstar Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks in a three-team deal that brought them even bigger superstar Luka Doncic.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 2, 2025

The trauma was often too much for them to verbalize.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 29, 2023

The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no craft to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness.

From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou

When he talks, Parsons seems to be unraveling his thoughts as he verbalizes them.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026

At one point while recording notes, in a moment of particularly on-the-nose screenwriting, Kelley verbalizes “Someone could write a book” and off he dashes to the library with his German interpreter, a baby-faced U.S.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2025

At regular intervals he volunteers context, explains what is spoken and verbalizes what is not — he essentially dispenses audio footnotes.

From New York Times ● May 17, 2022

One of them actually verbalizes this, but it’s pretty far into the game,

From Washington Times ● Apr. 14, 2021

He verbalizes it, and the sound of his own voice re-enforces it in him.

From Naudsonce by H. Beam Piper

And it is, of course, odd that they verbalized these fears by simply importing wholesale a hacky discourse from the U.S.

From Slate ● Jan. 5, 2025

Landi verbalized the objection at least one more time before the 60-second limit had expired.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2024

"Hey Congresspeople! Beware! Hell hath no fury like a . . . scorned," he adds, making a cutesy little face where one guesses an expletive would have otherwise been verbalized.

From Salon ● Dec. 15, 2023

She refuses to believe her father can find happiness with anyone other than her mother and has verbalized this to others.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 22, 2023

Do you feel a little better now that we’ve verbalized some things that you were unsure of or unwilling to talk about?

From "Tears of a Tiger" by Sharon M. Draper

Because talk therapy is a process of verbalizing symptoms to help process emotions, Pathomrit often spends extra time educating her clients and modeling what that looks like.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025

Only 81 out of the 100 survey respondents provided a definition, perhaps due to the challenge of verbalizing a working description.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 2024

So have anger and a thirst for vengeance, which the country’s leaders are verbalizing in language that critics in Israel say often crosses the line into incitement.

From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2023

Most Date Lab participants when pressed have a difficult time verbalizing why the spark didn’t manifest.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2022

“Luck,” Jesse said, never one for excessive verbalizing about feelings.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz