Library / English Dictionary

COLONIZE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Settle as colonists or establish a colony (in)

Example:

The British colonized the East Coast

Synonyms:

colonise; colonize

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

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

locate; settle (take up residence and become established)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

colonization (the act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies)

colony (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Settle as a colony; of countries in the developing world

Example:

Europeans colonized Africa in the 17th century

Synonyms:

colonise; colonize

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

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

annex (take (territory) as if by conquest)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

decolonize (grant independence to (a former colony))

Derivation:

colonization (the act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies)

colonizer (someone who helps to found a colony)

colony (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Called odilorhabdins, or ODLs, the antibiotics are produced by symbiotic bacteria found in soil-dwelling nematode worms that colonize insects for food.

(A New Class of Antibiotics to Combat Drug Resistance, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The winged offspring can then fly to and colonize new, less crowded plants.

(Virus genes help determine if pea aphids get wings, National Science Foundation)

Researchers then took skin biopsies from two groups of mice—one group that had been colonized by S. epidermidis and another that had not.

(Scientists find microbes on the skin of mice promote tissue healing, immunity, National Institutes of Health)

The dominant model for understanding animal movement is that the most important factors are an island's size and its distance from the colonizing animals' territory.

(Fossil discovery adds to understanding of how geological changes affected evolution of mammalian life, National Science Foundation)

The team found that colonizing the skin of mice with S. epidermidis specifically increased the number of CD8+ T immune cells.

(Skin Microbes and the Immune Response, NIH)

Not only that, these chondrocytes proliferated by colonizing the entire hydrogel, producing an extracellular matrix rich in proteoglycans, similar to that which they produce in native cartilage.

(Scientists design a new hydrogel that helps regenerate cartilage, University of Granada)

AM fungi colonize plant roots, creating an interface where the plant trades fatty acids for phosphate and nitrogen.

(Plant gene discovery could help reduce fertilizer pollution in waterways, National Science Foundation)

These microbes that naturally colonize the skin are referred to as commensals.

(Skin Microbes and the Immune Response, NIH)