materialize

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

Verb

  1. To cause to take physical form, or to cause an object to appear.
  2. To take physical form, to appear seemingly from nowhere.
    • a spirit form, temporarily materialized, and undistinguishable from a human being in the flesh, has come forth in the light[…] - 1875, Epes Sargent, The Proof Palpable of Immortality:
    • Don’t you find, that things fail to materialize? Nothing materializes! Everything withers in the bud. - 1920, D.H. Lawrence, chapter 1, in Women in Love:
    • Perhaps every five minutes each person ceases to exist and is fissed, with one descendant instantly replacing the original and the other materializing on a twin Earth somewhere […] - 1998, Richard Hanley, Is Data Human?:
  3. To become real (of a plan, idea, etc.); to come to fruition.
  4. To regard as matter; to consider or explain by the laws or principles which are appropriate to matter.
  5. To perform materialization; to save the results of a database query as a temporary table or materialized view.

Origin

Etymology tree English material Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English materialize From material + -ize.

Forms

materializes materializing materialized materialise

Derived

dematerialize materializable materializer rematerialize unmaterialized