Word.ws English Dictionary

lexicalise

lexicalise is the alternative spelling of lexicalize.

Meaning of lexicalize

Verb

lexicalize (third-person singular simple present lexicalizes, present participle lexicalizing, simple past and past participle lexicalized)

  1. (intransitive) To become part of the vocabulary of a language as a single lexical unit with a distinct meaning.
  2. (transitive) To accept a term into one's own vocabulary as a distinct lexical unit.
    • In fact, the child will lexicalize one, two, or three elements of the semantic representation according to his lexicalization span.1975, Eric H. Lenneberg, Elizabeth Lenneberg, Foundations of Language Development: A Multidisciplinary Approach, volume 1, page 192

Forms of lexicalise

third-person singular presentlexicalises
present participlelexicalising
past participlelexicalised
pastlexicalised

Words formed from lexicalise

Questions about lexicalise

What is lexicalise the alternative spelling of?
Lexicalise is the alternative spelling of lexicalize.

Words near lexicalise in the dictionary

  1. lexical words
  2. lexicalic
  3. lexicalisable
  4. lexicalisation
  5. lexicalisations
  6. lexicalise
  7. lexicalised
  8. lexicalises
  9. lexicalising
  10. lexicalism
  11. lexicalist

Source and license

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