realize

Alternative forms

• realise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Etymology

Attested since 1610, from French réaliser, from Middle French real (“actual”), from Old French reel, from Latin realis, from res (“thing, event, deed, fact”); as if real +‎ -ize.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹi.ə.laɪz/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪə.laɪz/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: re‧al‧ize

Verb

realize (third-person singular simple present realizes, present participle realizing, simple past and past participle realized)

1. (formal, transitive) To make real; to convert from the imaginary or fictitious into the actual; to bring into concrete existence

   Synonym: accomplish

   • (Can we date this quote?), Joseph Glanvill

     We realize what Archimedes had only in hypothesis, weighting a single grain against the globe of earth.

   The objectives of the project were never fully realized.

2. (transitive) To become aware of a fact or situation.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:

     No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.

   He realized that he had left his umbrella on the train.

   The defendant desperately yelled at her young daughter, frantic to make her realize what she had done.

3. (transitive) To cause to seem real; to feel vividly or strongly; to make one's own in apprehension or experience.
   • 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, II:

     That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

   • (Can we date this quote?), Benjamin Jowett.

     Many coincidences . . . soon begin to appear in them [Greek inscriptions] which realize ancient history to us.

   • (Can we date this quote?), Sir William Hamilton

     We can not realize it in thought, that the object . . . had really no being at any past moment.

4. (transitive, business) To acquire as an actual possession; to obtain as the result of plans and efforts; to gain; to get
   • (Can we date this quote?) Macaulay

     Knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by diligent thrift realize a good estate.

   to realize large profits from a speculation

5. (transitive, business, finance) To convert any kind of property into money, especially property representing investments, as shares, bonds, etc.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Washington Irving

     Wary men took the alarm, and began to realize, a word now first brought into use to express the conversion of ideal property into something real.

   Profits from the investment can be realized at any time by selling the shares.   By realizing the company's assets, the liquidator was able to return most of the shareholders' investments.

6. (transitive, business, obsolete) To convert into real property; to make real estate of.

References

• realize in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• realize in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Verb

realize

1. First-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of realizar
2. Third-person singular (ele, ela, also used with tu and você^?) present subjunctive of realizar
3. Third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of realizar
4. Third-person singular (você) negative imperative of realizar