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
Liquid latex currently takes two to three minutes to vulcanize, making it impractical.
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
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 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 pieces of vulcanized rubber track were produced at a factory in northern Italy and workers have been laying them down at Stade de France, the national stadium hosting track events.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 14, 2024
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
In 1917, Converse rolled out the forerunner of its now iconic high-top Chuck Taylor All Star, a basketball-specific shoe with a vulcanized rubber sole and canvas upper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2019
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
Polymerization of the chloroprene had resulted in a sub stance similar to the product obtained by vulcanizing rubber with sulphur.
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
These thioantimonites are used in the vulcanizing of rubber and in the preparation of matches.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 2 "Anjar" to "Apollo" by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
