polarise
polarise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of polarize.
Meaning of polarize
Verb
polarize (third-person singular simple present polarizes, present participle polarizing, simple past and past participle polarized)
- To cause to have a polarization.
- To polarize, and indeed, to artificially distinguish between the secular and the religious is to dismiss the inarguable Judeo-Christian foundation of contemporary secular institutions.1979 August 11, Lisa Capaldini, “Lessons From History”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 4, page 4
- To cause a group to be divided into extremes.
- The deal has polarized Twitter employees, users, and regulators over the power tech giants wield in determining the parameters of acceptable discourse on the internet and how those companies enforce their rules.2022 April 26, Cara Lombardo, Meghan Bobrowsky, Georgia Wells, “Musk Strikes Deal to Buy Twitter”, in The Wall Street Journal, volume 279, number 96, Dow Jones & Company, News Corp, page 1
Forms of polarise
| third-person singular present | polarises |
|---|---|
| present participle | polarising |
| past participle | polarised |
| past | polarised |
Origin of polarise
From French polariser, equivalent to polar + -ise.
Words formed from polarise
Questions about polarise
- What is polarise the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of?
- Polarise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of polarize.
Words near polarise in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: polarise (page history and authors); polarize (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “polarise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/polarise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.