Word.ws English Dictionary

generalise

generalise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of generalize.

Meaning of generalize

Verb

generalize (third-person singular simple present generalizes, present participle generalizing, simple past and past participle generalized)

  1. To speak in generalities, or in vague terms.
  2. To infer or induce from specific cases to more general cases or principles.
    • Copernicus generalized the celestial motions by merely referring them to the moon's motion. Newton generalized them still more by referring this last to the motion of a stone through the air.1795, William Nicholson, A Dictionary of Chemistry
  3. To spread throughout the body and become systemic.
  4. To derive or deduce (a general concept or principle) from particular facts.
    • A mere conclusion generalized from a great multitude of facts.August 24, 1831, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Truth and Maxims

Forms of generalise

third-person singular presentgeneralises
present participlegeneralising
past participlegeneralised
pastgeneralised

Origin of generalise

From general + -ise.

Words formed from generalise

Questions about generalise

What is generalise the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of?
Generalise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of generalize.

Words near generalise in the dictionary

  1. generaling
  2. generalisability
  3. generalisable
  4. generalisation
  5. generalisations
  6. generalise
  7. generaliseable
  8. generalised
  9. generalised circle
  10. generalised circles
  11. generalised search tree

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: generalise (page history and authors); generalize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “generalise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/generalise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.