naturalize Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb make into a citizen
    naturalise.
    • The French family was naturalized last year
  2. verb explain with reference to nature
  3. verb adopt to another place
    naturalise.
    • The stories had become naturalized into an American setting
  4. verb make more natural or lifelike
    naturalise.
  5. verb adapt (a wild plant or unclaimed land) to the environment
    cultivate; tame; naturalise; domesticate.
    • domesticate oats
    • tame the soil

WordNet

Nat"u*ral*ize transitive verb
Etymology
Cf. F. naturaliser. See Natural.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Naturalized present participle & verbal noun Naturalizing
Definitions
  1. To make natural; as, custom naturalizes labor or study.
  2. To confer the rights and privileges of a native subject or citizen on; to make as if native; to adopt, as a foreigner into a nation or state, and place in the condition of a native subject.
  3. To receive or adopt as native, natural, or vernacular; to make one's own; as, to naturalize foreign words.
  4. To adapt; to accustom; to habituate; to acclimate; to cause to grow as under natural conditions.
    Its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England climate. Hawthorne.
Nat"u*ral*ize intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To become as if native.
  2. To explain phenomena by natural agencies or laws, to the exclusion of the supernatural.
    Infected by this naturalizing tendency. H. Bushnell.

Webster 1913