Neutralization

//ˌnjuːtɹəlaɪˈzeɪʃən// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of neutralizing. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    action intended to nullify the effects of some previous action wordnet
  3. 3
    action intended to keep a country politically neutral or exclude it from a possible war wordnet
  4. 4
    (euphemism) the removal of a threat by killing or destroying it (especially in a covert operation or military operation) wordnet
  5. 5
    a chemical reaction in which an acid and a base interact with the formation of a salt; with strong acids and bases the essential reaction is the combination of hydrogen ions with hydroxyl ions to form water wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
annulmentcancellationcounteractionfrustrationinvalidationneutralisation

Example

More examples

""That's genocide!" "You call it genocide, I call it preemptive neutralization of undesirable elements. Tomayto, tomahto.""

Etymology

Borrowed from French neutralisation. By surface analysis, neutral + -ization or neutralize + -ation.

Related phrases

neutralization number

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