Word.ws English Dictionary

institutionalized

institutionalized is the simple past and past participle of institutionalize.

Adjective

institutionalized (comparative more institutionalized, superlative most institutionalized)

  1. Having been established as an institution.
    • It is very difficult to get bureaucracies to abandon their institutionalized practices.
  2. Having been committed to an institution, such as a prison or an insane asylum.
    • Once a potential employer learns that you've been institutionalized, you can forget about getting the job.
  3. Having become dependent after a long time in, and unable to function outside of an institution, especially a prison.

Meaning of institutionalize

Verb

institutionalize (third-person singular simple present institutionalizes, present participle institutionalizing, simple past and past participle institutionalized)

  1. To establish as a normal practice.
    • Gary Orlando, legislative aid to McDonald, told GCN that the congressman sponsored the bill because "he does not want to institutionalize homosexual acts. We can't use funds to promote, legitimize, or accept this kind of behavior.1980 August 16, Bennett Klein, “House Passes Anti-Gay Clause”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 5, page 6
  2. To commit a person to confinement in an institution.

Forms of institutionalized

comparativemore institutionalized
superlativemost institutionalized

Words formed from institutionalized

Questions about institutionalized

What does institutionalized mean?
Institutionalized means having been established as an institution.
What is institutionalized the simple past and past participle of?
Institutionalized is the simple past and past participle of institutionalize.
What part of speech is institutionalized?
Institutionalized is an adjective.

Words near institutionalized in the dictionary

  1. institutionalizability
  2. institutionalizable
  3. institutionalization
  4. institutionalizations
  5. institutionalize
  6. institutionalized
  7. institutionalizer
  8. institutionalizers
  9. institutionalizes
  10. institutionalizing
  11. institutionally

Source and license

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