Word.ws English Dictionary

initializing

initializing is the present participle and gerund of initialize.

Meaning of initialize

Verb

initialize (third-person singular simple present initializes, present participle initializing, simple past and past participle initialized)

  1. (British, English, Oxford, US) To assign initial values to something.
  2. (British, English, Oxford, US) To assign an initial value to a variable.
  3. (British, English, Oxford, US) To format a storage medium prior to use.
  4. (British, English, Oxford, US) To prepare any hardware (such as a printer or scanner) for use.
  5. (British, English, Oxford, US, dated) To reduce (a phrase) to an initialism, or a word to its initial.

Questions about initializing

What is initializing the present participle and gerund of?
Initializing is the present participle and gerund of initialize.

Words near initializing in the dictionary

  1. initialize
  2. initialized
  3. initializer
  4. initializers
  5. initializes
  6. initializing
  7. initialled
  8. initialler
  9. initiallers
  10. initialling
  11. initially

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: initializing (page history and authors); initialize (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: “initializing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/initializing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.