sterilize
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: astronomy
biology
natural-sciences
Etymology: Etymology tree
English sterile
Proto-Indo-European *-id-
Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti
Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō
Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor.
Late Latin -izōder.
Middle French -iserbor.
Middle English -isen
English -ize
English sterilize
From sterile + -ize.
Inflected forms:
form: sterilizes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sterilizing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: sterilized
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: sterilized
pos: verb
tags: past
form: sterilise
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: To deprive of the ability to procreate.
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
transitive
examples: If monogeny is determined exclusively by a cytoplasmic factor, then it is easy to see that the factor will either die out (if it causes arrhenogeny) or will become fixed and thereby sterilize the population (if it causes thelygeny).
In China, the issue of forced abortions has resurfaced with the allegations by escaped activist Chen Guangcheng, but the outgoing premier Wen Jiabao has publicly called for a ban not only on forced abortion, but also of “fetus gender identification.” Nevertheless, many women who have abortions in China are also sterilized against their will.
gloss: To make unable to produce; to make unprofitable.
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
transitive
gloss: To kill, deactivate (denature), or destroy (break apart) all living, viable microorganisms and spores on a surface, in a fluid, or contained in a compound, such as culture media or a medical product.
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
transitive
examples: One machine in which Mr. Taylor takes special pride is a salmon canner, which engulfs a whole salmon, decapitates and decaudates it, skins it, blows out its viscera, cuts it into pieces, deposits them in the can, sterilizes them […]
The bottled juice must be heated to a temperature and for a time sufficient to attain a sterilizing temperature at the coolest point, usually the center of the bottle.
gloss: To render a planet like Earth permanently uninhabitable to all life, including even microbes, causing their complete extinction.
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
transitive
gloss: To redact (a document), removing classified or sensitive material.
pos: verb
tags: British
English
Oxford
US
transitive
examples: […] (minus, of course, any information that might identify the agent and other operational personnel), or he might code it or "sterilize" it, and reward the foreign station chief in some other way.
The same phenomenon is also detectable in the records of the meetings of NATO committees: the priority of avoiding any manifestation of internal disagreements led to the production of 'sterilized' records of discussions which evidently were significantly more lively than shown in the official papers.
Synonyms: sterilize
Related words: sterile
sterilization
birth control
castrate
castrato
eunuch
procreate
procreation
spay
copulate
Derived words: chemosterilize
desterilize
nonsterilizing
presterilize
radiosterilize
resterilize
sterilizable
sterilizee
sterilizer
thermosterilize
Translations: