Punctualize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To render as, or turn into, a point; (specifically, sociology) to consider a conceptual or social network as a single point-like entity or “black box”.

    "One of the complaints sometimes made concerning phenomenology is that it seems to substantialize the self, that it makes the ego into a kind of fixed point that escapes its own history […] But phenomenology does not punctualize the self […]"

  2. 2
    To express an action as happening at a specific moment.

    "Among indices of the first type, we find not only adverbs like hier ‘yesterday’, but also a variety of other expressions that serve to punctualize or indicate a specific time."

Example

More examples

"One of the complaints sometimes made concerning phenomenology is that it seems to substantialize the self, that it makes the ego into a kind of fixed point that escapes its own history […] But phenomenology does not punctualize the self […]"

Etymology

From punctual + -ize.

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