Bullionize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To convert or make convertible to bullion, especially gold bullion.

    "It was an act to bullionize the debt of the United States and to give a value of five hundred millions to the unfortunate creditors, those poor fllows that lay like Lazarus at the gates of the rich man to pick up the crumbs that fell from the Government table: an act to raise the securiities from eighty cents in the dollar to $1.20 in the dollar!"

  2. 2
    To make or become noble or of high quality. figuratively, obsolete

    "This is by no means an implication that the successful are tyrannical oppressors, and the mediocre deluded serfs, for there are probably more men in the present House of Lords who need no patent of nobility to make good their claim to leadership than in our bullionized Senate."

  3. 3
    To mint into coins. obsolete

    "Gold for exportation, which was required to be “sworn off" as it was called, that is, not coin bullionized, used to pass for a shilling or two more than coin per ounce; and therefore the coin is additionally altered to that extent, and the whole policy of former legislation, from the first enactments in the reign of Edward I., has been hastily changed, to the detriment of our circulation as applicable to our internal and domestic uses, increased as those uses are by the circumstances I have enumerated."

Example

More examples

"It was an act to bullionize the debt of the United States and to give a value of five hundred millions to the unfortunate creditors, those poor fllows that lay like Lazarus at the gates of the rich man to pick up the crumbs that fell from the Government table: an act to raise the securiities from eighty cents in the dollar to $1.20 in the dollar!"

Etymology

From bullion + -ize.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.