Melanize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To convert into melanin, or to deposit melanin in. transitive

    "At the extreme, the mosquito does not permit survival and transmission of the parasite: in genetically selected refractory mosquito strains, the parasites may be lysed as they traverse the midgut, or may be encapsulated and melanized at the early oocyst stage."

  2. 2
    make or become black wordnet
  3. 3
    convert into, or infiltrate with melanin wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
besmirchblackblackenblackenblotblotch

Example

More examples

"At the extreme, the mosquito does not permit survival and transmission of the parasite: in genetically selected refractory mosquito strains, the parasites may be lysed as they traverse the midgut, or may be encapsulated and melanized at the early oocyst stage."

Etymology

From melanin + -ize.

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