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

“I can be more daring in English. I can say the words or verbalize the thoughts with much less inhibition, because I am not as emotionally attached,” he explains.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026

“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

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

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

From Washington Times ● Apr. 14, 2021

The philosopher Alva Noë, in voice-over, verbalizes questions that might be going through an audience member’s head, like: “Why are they doing that?”

From New York Times ● Jan. 16, 2018

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

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

Justin Nelson, one of the attorneys representing Dominion, verbalized his concerns.

From Salon ● Feb. 9, 2023

Hearing her fear verbalized by Maddie, that her friendship with James was over for good, had the unexpected effect of making Emily realize how silly it sounded.

From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

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

As one-third of the rap group Migos, Quavious Marshall rose to chart-topping prominence in the last decade by verbalizing hip-hop’s stickiest choruses and most satisfyingly inane ad-libs, mostly extemporaneously.

From New York Times ● Oct. 18, 2023

He was verbalizing it, that I have his full support and that we were going to figure this thing out, to right the ship, so to speak.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 8, 2023

“There’s a lot of accountability to verbalizing what you’re seeing, what you’re thinking,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2022

But they did not talk about it, as though verbalizing it would make Baby’s death imminent, until the morning she sat watching Baby sleep while Odenigbo got dressed for work.

From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie