Word.ws English Dictionary

operationalize

UK/ɒpəˈɹeɪʃ(ə)nəlʌɪz//ˌɑpəˈɹeɪʃənəˌlaɪz/

operationalize verb: to make operational.

Verb

operationalize (third-person singular simple present operationalizes, present participle operationalizing, simple past and past participle operationalized)

  1. (transitive) To make operational.
    • I have a lot of sexual fantasies that I'm never going to operationalize. I enjoy them just as fantasies.1981 August 15, Nancy Wechsler, Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, “Sadomasochism: Fears, Facts, Fantasies”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 5, page 6
  2. (transitive) To define (a concept) in such a way that it can be practically measured.
    • To operationalize a concept is to identify those variables in terms of which the phenomenon represented by the concept can be accurately observed.1956, Ernest Greenwood, “New Directions in Delinquency Research: A Commentary on a Study by Bernard Lander”, in Social Service Review, volume 30, number 2, page 152
    • Vision seems ‘childishly simple’ to us but proves to be fiendishly hard to operationalise, precisely because we are so good at it.2012, Adam Zeman, ‘Only Connect’, Literary Review, number 399

Forms of operationalize

third-person singular presentoperationalizes
present participleoperationalizing
past participleoperationalized
pastoperationalized
alternative formoperationalise

Origin of operationalize

From operational + -ize.

Words formed from operationalize

Questions about operationalize

What does operationalize mean?
Operationalize means to make operational.
What part of speech is operationalize?
Operationalize is a verb.
How do you pronounce operationalize?
Operationalize is pronounced /ɒpəˈɹeɪʃ(ə)nəlʌɪz/ (UK).
What is the past tense of operationalize?
The past tense of operationalize is operationalized.

Words near operationalize in the dictionary

  1. operationality
  2. operationalizability
  3. operationalizable
  4. operationalization
  5. operationalizations
  6. operationalize
  7. operationalized
  8. operationalizes
  9. operationalizing
  10. operationally
  11. operationism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: operationalize (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-operationalize.wav.

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