actualizev.
/ˈak(t)ʃʊəlʌɪz/, /ˈak(t)ʃᵿlʌɪz/, /ˈak(t)ʃl̩ʌɪz/, U.S. /ˈæk(t)ʃ(əw)əˌlaɪz/ 1.
a. transitive. To make actual or real; to carry out in practice; to realize in action.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > existence > reality or real existence or actuality > make real [verb (transitive)]
realize1611
actualize1809
positivizea1866
immanentize1926
1809 S. T. Coleridge Friend 14 Sept. 76 To make our Feelings, with their vital warmth, actualize our Reason.
1823 T. De Quincey Lett. Young Man in London Mag. Mar. 333/1 When these inert and sleeping forms are organized—when these possibilities are actualized.
1890 Leeds Mercury 10 Mar. 8/3 It had been their good fortune to know something of Sir Edward Baines, who in his life had actualised the attainable.
1902 G. T. Ladd Philos. of Conduct iii. xx. 470 To be actualized, or brought into being, they [sc. pleasure-pains] must be experienced.
1950 W. P. Montague Great Visions of Philos. iii. iv. 146 Each being in seeking to actualize its potentialities is seeking the good.
1994 N. Churchich Marxism & Morality v. 131 Unless actualised in social life, all moral principles and standards are merely abstract and ideal.
b. transitive (reflexive). To become actual or real, to be carried out in practice. In later use also: to develop oneself, to fulfil one's potential; = realize v.2 1d; cf. self-actualization n.
ΚΠ
1831 Fraser's Mag. 4 553 The march of mind has actualised itself in the literature of Germany.
1893 Eng. Illustr. Mag. 10 571/2 Those hypothetical gains..had actualised themselves into so much dead loss.
1940 K. Goldstein Human Nature in Light of Psychopathol. iv. 114 When normal people are beset to an abnormal degree by anxiety, they are unable to actualize themselves.
1977 Listener 20 Oct. 500/3 Anyone who has not ‘actualised’ himself and his potentialities will be in Hell.
1988 J. A. Hall Jungian Experience Introd. 14 Without the ego, the unconscious is helpless to actualize itself effectively in the world.
2003 S. China Morning Post (Nexis) 11 Sept. 13 He..encouraged his wife to actualise herself through work outside the home.
c. transitive. To represent or describe realistically. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > representation > [verb (transitive)]
depaint?c1225
paintc1275
figurec1380
resemblea1393
portraya1398
represent?a1425
impicture1523
portrait1548
shadow1553
to paint forth1558
storize1590
personate1591
limn1593
propound1594
model1604
table1607
semble1610
rendera1616
to paint out1633
person1644
present1649
to figure out1657
historize1668
to fancy out1669
to take off1680
figurate1698
refer1700
display1726
depicture1739
depict1817
actualize1848
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > conformity with what is known, truth > represent realistically [verb (transitive)]
realize1611
actualize1848
society > leisure > the arts > literature > art or occupation of writer or author > be the author of or write (a work) [verb (transitive)] > express in written work or write about > express realistically
actualize1848
vitalize1884
1848 Preston Chron. & Lancs. Advertiser 2 Dec. 4/3 The costume of the country is actualized, and contrasted with its present surface.
1881 Athenæum 9 July 39/3 Other writers..have not sufficient imaginative force to actualize a truly imaginative situation, and require the ‘prop of allegory’.
2000 Jakarta Post (Nexis) 3 Mar. 9 Politics is only a situation that inspires Fo's inner-self and something he can actualize in a very artistic and aesthetical manner.
d. transitive. To make real to one's mind; to apprehend or understand, esp. fully or clearly.
ΚΠ
1917 Arch. Psychol. 39 2 Aufgabe... There are two gross meanings: (1) The problem set by the experimenter, the instructions given, and (2) the problem understood and actualized by the observer or subject.
1976 J. D. Andrew Major Film Theories i. 24 The psychological claim that film in fact exists not on celluloid, nor even on the screen, but only in the mind which actualizes it.
1987 Ess. in Crit. 37 151 It is as if something that the poet had always sensed subliminally had finally been actualised.
2002 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 3 Nov. 14/2 All three [novels] worry at the role of the reader in ‘actualizing’ the text's message and in relating it to truth or reality.
2. intransitive. To become real; to happen or function in practice; to develop.
ΚΠ
a1871 G. Grote Aristotle (1872) II. App. 377 If the same condition comes round periodically, we must necessarily assume something Actual, which perpetually actualizes in the same manner.
1903 Fabian News Nov. 41/2 Each child starts with a certain amount of vigor. How much of this actualizes depends on his environment before and after birth.
1952 N. V. Peale Power of Positive Thinking iv. 49 When either failure or success is picturized it strongly tends to actualize in terms equivalent to the mental image pictured.
2006 First Things (Nexis) 1 Oct. 5 A one-celled embryo has and must have an internal capacity for development toward higher levels of maturity. This capacity may actualize for only a brief time or unfold to adulthood.
3. transitive. Linguistics. To vocalize or articulate (a speech sound). Also intransitive: (of a speech sound) to be articulated in a particular way.
ΚΠ
1933 Language 9 232 The group dental stop + dental stop could not be actualized in speech as a long dental stop.
1954 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. 74 219 It actualizes as a two-mora high-falling vowel when in an open syllable.
1970 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. 1968 l. 16 /ɛ/, actualized as a monophthong, occurs before /ə/ in clear, ear,..consistently only in the speech of the older informants.
1997 D. Silverman Phasing & Recoverability v. 174 LH and MH long ballistic syllables possess a non-contrastive initial H-tone, and are thus actualized HLH, HMH.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
<
v.1809