NATURALIZE

domesticate, cultivate, naturalize, naturalise, tame

(verb) adapt (a wild plant or unclaimed land) to the environment; “domesticate oats”; “tame the soil”

naturalize, naturalise

(verb) make into a citizen; “The French family was naturalized last year”

naturalize, naturalise

(verb) make more natural or lifelike

naturalize, naturalise

(verb) adopt to another place; “The stories had become naturalized into an American setting”

naturalize

(verb) explain with reference to nature

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology

Verb

naturalize (third-person singular simple present naturalizes, present participle naturalizing, simple past and past participle naturalized)

To grant citizenship to someone not born a citizen

To acclimatize an animal or plant

To make natural

To limit explanations of a phenomenon to naturalistic ones and exclude supernatural ones

(linguistics) To make (a word) a natural part of the language.

To study nature.

Antonyms

• supernaturalize

Source: Wiktionary

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Nat"u*ral*ize, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Naturalized; p. pr. & vb. n. Naturalizing.] Etym: [Cf. F. naturaliser. See Natural.]

1. To make natural; as, custom naturalizes labor or study.

2. To confer the rights and privileges of a native subject or citizen on; to make as if native; to adopt, as a foreigner into a nation or state, and place in the condition of a native subject.

3. To receive or adopt as native, natural, or vernacular; to make one's own; as, to naturalize foreign words.

4. To adapt; to accustom; to habituate; to acclimate; to cause to grow as under natural conditions. Its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England climate. Hawthorne.

Nat"u*ral*ize, v. i.

1. To become as if native.

2. To explain phenomena by natural agencies or laws, to the exclusion of the supernatural. Infected by this naturalizing tendency. H. Bushnell.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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