weaponize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to supply or equip with a weapon or weapons.
to weaponize trucks and helicopters.
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to develop (a chemical, microorganism, etc.) for use as a weapon, as in biological warfare.
to weaponize uranium;
weaponized anthrax.
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to use as a means to gain a powerful advantage.
She has been known to weaponize her femininity.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of weaponize
First recorded in 1955–60; weapon ( def. ) + -ize ( def. )
Explanation
To use something in order to deliberately inflict harm on people is to weaponize it. If you start pelting your brother with grapes, he might accuse you of weaponizing your fruit salad. When a group or government weaponizes something, they take an ordinary object and turn it into a weapon. This word was originally used during the Cold War as military jargon. When the U.S. Army added nuclear capabilities to rockets, preparing them for launching, they weaponized them. These days, it's common to describe everything from words to the internet as being weaponized — in fact, you can weaponize anything that can be used to attack someone else.
Vocabulary lists containing weaponize
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:
Playwrights from Shakespeare to Sondheim to Manuel-Miranda, meanwhile, write around human emotion and almost weaponize relatability to enrich the audience’s theater experience.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
As frontier models automate vulnerability discovery at machine scale, security chiefs scramble to automate patching before hackers weaponize flaws.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
They did not argue that Instagram or YouTube should be liable for what users posted, but rather that the platforms themselves, which weaponize infinite scroll, autoplay, and addictive feeds, are dangerous products.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 27, 2026
Today, Venezuela lacks the ability to disrupt global energy flows or weaponize supply in the way larger producers can.
From Barron's ● Jan. 3, 2026
The machines are “a deliberate choice by a multi billion dollar corporation that absolutely knew what it was doing and chose to weaponize sound literally,” said Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the city’s first district.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
At first, only around 50 partners -- mostly US companies -- were brought into the program called Project Glasswing to test the model's powers before it could be weaponized by hackers.
From Barron's ● Jun. 2, 2026
“This fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise,” the statement read.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026
The fund was "open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise", the DOJ said.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
There’s that word that gets weaponized so often lately to describe things that are bad but somewhat entertaining, which is exactly how I’d describe Gyllenhaal’s output this decade.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
Anya could see the autumn air parting as the weaponized whistle rocketed toward them.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
Until now, the country has largely refrained from weaponizing its financial sector against its neighbor across the Persian Gulf.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
“The volume, coordination, and repetition signal a deliberate strategy to nationalize a local race by weaponizing bigotry as a turnout engine,” the group’s report says.
From Slate ● Nov. 25, 2025
Supporters said the law was necessary to prevent powerful individuals from weaponizing the legal system against those who report misconduct.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2025
He noticed the company’s top executives weaponizing language to control their employees.
From Salon ● Feb. 15, 2025
His grandfather Fulton Oursler was a mystery writer and magician who delighted in exposing scammers he believed were weaponizing the craft.
From New York Times ● May 16, 2024
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.
