westernize
verb
westernize is a verb meaning “To render something western in character” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled W-E-S-T-E-R-N-I-Z-E and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 36 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does westernize mean?
verb
- 1
To render something western in character.
verb
- 1
Alternative letter-case form of westernize.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce westernize?
Westernize has 3 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).
Forms of westernize
- westernizes present, singular, he/she/it
- westernizing participle, present
- westernized participle, past
- westernise
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is westernize?
Westernize appears about once in every 36 million words in written English, the 184,844th 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).
Westernize in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense make something western:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | occidentaliser |
| German | verwestlichen |
| Portuguese | ocidentalizar |
| Spanish | occidentalizar |
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 westernize come from?
From western + -ize.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).