realize

Less common meanings

4. 4
   turn into cashverbtransitive

   To convert an asset or property, especially an investment such as bonds or shares, into a more usable form such as money, usually by selling it.

   The trustees decided to realize the estate's holdings before year-end.

   She realized her property portfolio to fund the new business.

   UsageThe object is the thing sold: realize assets, realize shares. Compare realize a profit, where the object is the money.

   Similarliquidate, sell

   Note

   A liquidator's and an investor's verb, and its object is the asset itself: realize assets, realize shares, realize holdings. Converting them is what turns property into spendable money: Maeve Binchy's Silver Wedding (1988) has a client "willing to realize most of his assets."

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   (Of an asset or property) to be sold for, or bring in, a stated amount of money.

   The estate realized far more than the family had expected.

   The paintings were expected to realize well over a million dollars when they went under the hammer.

   UsageThe thing sold is the subject and an amount the object: the painting realized $2 million, much as a house fetches a price.

6. 6
   portray (art)verbtransitive

   To make something seem real, especially by showing it clearly or realistically in art, film or writing.

   The director worked to realize the novel's bleak landscape on screen.

   Vivid prose realized the storm so well that readers felt the cold.

   Note

   The outward-facing use, in which something is made real to a mind. Divines gave this work to faith: Richard Baxter in 1654 grants that Faith may be said to "Realize salvation to the Soul", and Thomas Boston, writing before 1733, says "faith realiseth the sufferings of Christ." Defoe's Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) has a vision "so realiz'd to me" that it seemed true. Realizing a thing to oneself is archaic; the opposite is derealize. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • Richard Baxter used the quoted wording in 1654, conceding that faith could make salvation real to the soul. en.wiktionary.org
   • Thomas Boston wrote the quoted statement before 1733. en.wiktionary.org
   • Daniel Defoe wrote The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719. en.wikipedia.org
   • The novel describes an imagined experience as "so realiz'd to me" that its narrator believed it was or would be true. en.wiktionary.org
7. 7
   sense vividlyverbtransitive

   To sense or perceive something so strongly and vividly that it seems real.

   That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

   1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”

   UsageOften after could not or could hardly: he could hardly realize it.

   Similarpicture, imagine, envision, visualize

   Note

   Here realizing means feeling a thing as present and vivid, beyond simply knowing it. It often comes with could not or could hardly: the narrator of Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887) knows a man is unaware that the earth goes round the sun, yet "could hardly realize it." To tell it from the plain 'become aware' meaning, ask whether the speaker already knows the fact. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Arthur Conan Doyle wrote A Study in Scarlet, first published in 1887. en.wikipedia.org
   • The narrator describes discovering Holmes's ignorance of the earth's movement around the sun and uses the exact words "could hardly realize it." gutenberg.org
8. 8
   verbobsoleteUStransitive

   To experience something directly or feel it personally.

   Note

   An obsolete American use, and one to handle with care. In modern prose, "the soldier realized the horrors of war" will be read as the "become aware" meaning. Where actual experience is meant, today's writer says experienced, underwent or lived through. This sense belongs only to older American writing. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • The direct-experience sense is an obsolete American use, characteristic of older American writing. en.wiktionary.org
9. 9
   verb

   In linguistics, to produce an abstract unit such as a phoneme as an actual sound in speech.
10. 10
    verb

    To complete a musical work that is unfinished or not fully notated.
11. 11
    verb

    To arrange a musical work written for a single performer so that it can be played by an orchestra; to orchestrate.
12. 12
    verb

    In music, especially of the Baroque period, to work out the harmonies or accompaniment indicated by a figured bass, in writing or performance.
13. 13
    verb

    In mathematics, to produce a concrete instance of an abstract group or structure.