Spatialize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To localize sounds in physical space. transitive

    "On things that change as they move, Mr. Lelong writes, “when the composer spatializes a sound object — whether it is a chord, a motif or a rhythm — the sound object that is set in motion evolves, or to put it another way, the motion stimulated by the compositional process transforms the object, whereas previously works of spatial music merely give an impression of the same object moving unchanged through space.”"

  2. 2
    To place into a physical or geographical context. transitive

Example

More examples

"On things that change as they move, Mr. Lelong writes, “when the composer spatializes a sound object — whether it is a chord, a motif or a rhythm — the sound object that is set in motion evolves, or to put it another way, the motion stimulated by the compositional process transforms the object, whereas previously works of spatial music merely give an impression of the same object moving unchanged through space.”"

Etymology

From spatial + -ize.

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