Word Direct Answers

What does "realize" mean?

Realize: To cause to seem real; to impress upon the mind as actual; to feel vividly or strongly; to make one's own in apprehension or experience. Many coincidences . . . soon begin to appear in them [Greek inscriptions] which realize ancient history to us. Jowett. We can not realize it in thought, that the object . . . had really no being at any past moment. Sir W. Hamilton.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To convert into real property; to make real estate of; as, to realize his fortune.
  2. 3.To acquire as an actual possession; to obtain as the result of plans and efforts; to gain; to get; as, to realize large profits from a speculation. Knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by diligent thrift realize a good estate. Macaulay.
  3. 4.To convert into actual money; as, to realize assets.
  4. 5.To convert any kind of property into money, especially property representing investments, as shares in stock companies, bonds, etc. Wary men took the alarm, and began to realize, a word now first brought into use to express the conversion of ideal property into something real. W. Irving.

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