POPULARIZE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does popularize mean? 

• POPULARIZE (verb)
  The verb POPULARIZE has 2 senses:

1. cater to popular taste to make popular and present to the general public; bring into general or common use

2. make understandable to the general public

  Familiarity information: POPULARIZE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POPULARIZE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they popularize    ... he / she / it popularizes   
Past simple: popularized   
Past participle: popularized   
-ing form: popularizing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cater to popular taste to make popular and present to the general public; bring into general or common use

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

generalise; generalize; popularise; popularize; vulgarise; vulgarize

Context example:

Relativity Theory was vulgarized by these authors

Hypernyms (to "popularize" is one way to...):

broadcast; circularise; circularize; circulate; diffuse; disperse; disseminate; distribute; pass around; propagate; spread (cause to become widely known)

Verb group:

popularise; popularize (make understandable to the general public)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

popularization (the act of making something attractive to the general public)

popularizer (someone who makes something attractive to the general public)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make understandable to the general public

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

popularise; popularize

Context example:

Carl Sagan popularized cosmology in his books

Hypernyms (to "popularize" is one way to...):

gear; pitch (set the level or character of)

Verb group:

generalise; generalize; popularise; popularize; vulgarise; vulgarize (cater to popular taste to make popular and present to the general public; bring into general or common use)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

popularization (an interpretation that easily understandable and acceptable)

 Context examples 

Hypnopedia, or the ability to learn during sleep, was popularized in the '60s, with for example the dystopia Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, in which individuals are conditioned to their future tasks during sleep. This concept has been progressively abandoned due to a lack of reliable scientific evidence supporting in-sleep learning abilities.

(Learning While Sleeping?, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)