vulcanize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to treat (rubber) with sulfur and heat, thereby imparting strength, greater elasticity, durability, etc.
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to subject (a substance other than rubber) to some analogous process, as to harden it.
verb
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to treat (rubber) with sulphur or sulphur compounds under heat and pressure to improve elasticity and strength or to produce a hard substance such as vulcanite
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to treat (substances other than rubber) by a similar process in order to improve their properties
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of vulcanize
Explanation
To vulcanize is to submit rubber to a process that makes it hard. Charles Goodyear, whose name is synonymous with car tires, first developed the method used to vulcanize rubber. If it weren't for the ability to vulcanize rubber, a process that involves using chemicals to strengthen it, our lives would look very different than they do. We use this hardened rubber in objects including the tires on our cars, rubber hoses, the soles of our shoes, and those red rubber balls we use to play kickball. Before it came to describe this process, vulcanize meant "put into flames," from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan.
Vocabulary lists containing vulcanize
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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:
Sulfuric acid is used to produce phosphate fertilizers, leach copper and other metals from rock, pulp wood, pickle steel, tan leather and vulcanize rubber.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026
On every student's desk at Edgewood hangs a brand-new gas mask, product of a factory on the reservation where 2,000 women workers hem, stitch and vulcanize masks for the expanding Army.
From Time Magazine Archive
The key to its tire-making properties is a new curing agent that makes it possible to vulcanize Plioflex.
From Time Magazine Archive
Liquid latex currently takes two to three minutes to vulcanize, making it impractical.
From Time Magazine Archive
The verb vulcanize means “to strengthen a material such as rubber by combining it with sulfur and then applying heat and pressure.”
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Bubble Wrap, vulcanized rubber and Post-it Notes also emerged when inventors recognized potential in unexpected outcomes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 4, 2026
The International Ice Hockey Federation apparently secured the frozen vulcanized rubber disks immediately after the games and handed them to the Hall of Fame located in Toronto.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026
In 1887, Scottish-born inventor John Boyd Dunlop made a pressurized air-filled pneumatic tire from vulcanized rubber, just in time for use by bicycle and automobile manufacturers.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
Players score by using hockey sticks to maneuver a puck made of vulcanized rubber into the opposing team’s goal.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 25, 2022
As per training, she checked the gauge before tugging the vulcanized cowl.
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
These include 5-15% chemical additives, which comprise hundreds of substances, for example antioxidants, antiozonants, vulcanizing agents, anti-aging agents and many more, to enable the hig-tech performance of a modern tire.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 5, 2024
Two years later Father Nieuwland's divinylacetylene was treated with a vulcanizing agent and there was produced a material somewhat resembling rubber.
From Time Magazine Archive
This bouncy giant was founded in 1898 by Akron Brothers Charles and Frank Seiberling, who named the company after Charles Goodyear, discoverer of the vulcanizing process.
From Time Magazine Archive
Finally he collapsed completely from the effects of a large and mysterious wound and was removed for a quick vulcanizing job.
From Time Magazine Archive
Goodyear was thus on the threshold of his great discovery of vulcanizing rubber.
From Inventors by Philip Gengembre Hubert
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
