Skip to main content
PlainSpell

materialize

/məˈtɪɹiəlaɪz/verb

materialize is spelled M-A-T-E-R-I-A-L-I-Z-E: 11 letters and 5 syllables. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 29,270th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, materialize means “To cause to take physical form, or to cause an object to appear” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in materialize?

Letters11: M-A-T-E-R-I-A-L-I-Z-E
Syllables5 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 1 million words; the 29,270th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is materialize?

Materialize appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 29,270th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce materialize?

  • /məˈtɪɹiəlaɪz/

Materialize has 5 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-materialize.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of materialize

  • materializes present, singular, he/she/it
  • materializing participle, present
  • materialized participle, past
  • materialise

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does materialize mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    BritishUSTo cause to take physical form, or to cause an object to appear.

  2. 2

    BritishUSTo take physical form, to appear seemingly from nowhere.

  3. 3

    BritishUSTo become real (of a plan, idea, etc.); to come to fruition.

  4. 4

    BritishUSTo regard as matter; to consider or explain by the laws or principles which are appropriate to matter.

  5. 5

    BritishUSTo perform materialization; to save the results of a database query as a temporary table or materialized view.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Materialize in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmatérialiser (to cause to take physical form or to appear)
Germanmaterialisieren (to cause to take physical form or to appear), sich materialisieren (to take physical form or to appear seemingly…)
Portuguesematerializar (to cause to take physical form or to appear)
Spanishmaterializar (to cause to take physical form or to appear), materializarse (to take physical form or to appear seemingly…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does materialize come from?

From material + -ize.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after materialize