Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To regard as ideal.
- v. To make or envision as ideal.
- v. To render something as an ideal.
- v. To conceive ideals or an ideal.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make ideal; give form to in accordance with any preconceived ideal; embody in an ideal form: as, to idealize a portrait.
- To form ideals.
- Also spelled idealise.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make ideal; to consider as ideal; to give an ideal form or value to; to attribute ideal characteristics and excellences to.
- v. (Fine Arts) To treat in an ideal manner. See Idealization, 2.
- v. to form ideals.
- v. To form ideals.
WordNet 3.0
- v. consider or render as ideal
- v. form ideals
Etymologies
- From ideal + -ize (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The aim of creative art is to idealize, that is, to portray nature and experience in perfect forms not with the imperfections of visible nature.”
The Head Voice and Other Problems Practical Talks on Singing
“The artist is said to "idealize" his subject when he represents it as a fairer, nobler, more perfect than it is in reality.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 7: Gregory XII-Infallability
“We crave for shows that idealize wealth -- MTV's Cribs or Real Housewives of some wealthy neighborhood in America -- just so that we don't have to think about the struggles of poverty in our country.”
The Huffington Post: Joel John Roberts: Is Homelessness the Seeds of a Future American Uprising?
“This trope is almost banal: we hate what we idealize -- be it power, fame, wealth -- because what we idealize we know deep down is not worth wanting and so we feel embarrassed and even dirty for wanting it so.”
The Huffington Post: Rabbi Irwin Kula: The Roasting Of Weiner And The Public Good
“All too often we, in the West, idealize the 19th century British empire as being some benign club.”
“Thomas Kelly It's easy to idealize the Sadhus or mythologize them.”
The Wall Street Journal: Understanding the Sadhu's Mysteries
“And I think you tend to idealize government action.”
“The conflicts about remarrying after widowhood might also stem from our tendency to idealize the institution as the manifestation of true love.”
“Surrounding her wooden frame, we created a body that wasn't much thicker than a stick figure, but had the womanly and unattainable curves and proportions that impressionable young girls idealize.”
The Huffington Post: The Scary Reality of a Real-Life Barbie Doll
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘idealize’.
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PHIL - vocabulary of thinking
philosophy, Socratic, dialogue, philosopher, Athenian, philosophical, politic, Greek, method, death, ancient, believe and 243 more...
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loosen lessons
atmolyze, autolyze, cryptanalyze, photolyze, pyrolyze, realize, alize, cordialize, actualize, cyclize, artilize, aerosolize and 61 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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50 Words the SAT Loves
A list of common SAT words compiled by the Princeton Review.
abstract, aesthetic, alleviate, ambivalent, apathetic, auspicious, benevolent, candor, cogent, comprehensive, contemporary, conviction and 38 more...
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