Continentalize
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To broaden or narrow in scope or focus so that the domain becomes the continent.
"He who would continentalize our education would continentalize our history. I do not think that we shall be continentalized; I think that the movement has failed."
- 2 To spread throughout the continent.
"Such seawater-displacing ice sheets would contibute to a global O enrichment in the oceans and would further continentalize the climates of northern Europe, Asia, and North America but would not contribute significantly to reducing eustatic sea level."
- 3 To make or become more culturally European.
"A continentalized Scotchman is a character with whom every one who has resided on the Continent is familiar; a continentalized Englishman, if not an unknown, is a very unusual phenomenon."
- 4 To visit Europe.
"So far, therefore, as economy goes, this continentalizing has not succeeded up to this. Instead of living rent free at Dodsborough, with our own mutton and turnips, the ducks and peas, that cost us, I may say, nothing, here we are, keeping up the price of foreign markets, and feeding the foreigners at the expense of our own poor people."
- 5 To make into a continent.
"The river forms an island here which the ice now continentalizes."
Example
More examples"He who would continentalize our education would continentalize our history. I do not think that we shall be continentalized; I think that the movement has failed."
Etymology
From continental + -ize.
More for "continentalize"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.