Word.ws English Dictionary

romanticize

UK/rə(ʊ)ˈmantɪsaɪz//roʊˈmæntɪsaɪz/

romanticize verb: to interpret, view, or portray something in a romantic (unrealistic, idealized) manner.

Verb

romanticize (third-person singular simple present romanticizes, present participle romanticizing, simple past and past participle romanticized)

  1. (transitive) To interpret, view, or portray something in a romantic (unrealistic, idealized) manner.
    • While we might have a tendency to romanticize the past, the reality is that cooking was often a monotonous, arduous, thankless task required to keep the family fed.2016, Jayson Lusk, Unnaturally Delicious, →ISBN, page 47
    Synonyms:
    glamorize
  2. (intransitive) To think or act in a romantic manner.

Examples of romanticize in a sentence

  • I hate sillyboysclub and their romanticizing and "cute-ifying" of self harm and suicide.
  • Yet, a romanticized ‘Barneyesque’ view of play remains primary, that play is a nicety, a simple extra.
  • “I know youʼve got this romanticized version of her in your head, but sheʼs got her flaws.”

All 13 example sentences with romanticize

Synonyms of romanticize

Forms of romanticize

third-person singular presentromanticizes
present participleromanticizing
past participleromanticized
pastromanticized
alternative formromanticise

Past tense of romanticize: romanticized

Origin of romanticize

From romantic + -ize.

Words formed from romanticize

Questions about romanticize

What does romanticize mean?
Romanticize means to interpret, view, or portray something in a romantic (unrealistic, idealized) manner.
What part of speech is romanticize?
Romanticize is a verb.
How do you pronounce romanticize?
Romanticize is pronounced /rə(ʊ)ˈmantɪsaɪz/ (UK).
What is the past tense of romanticize?
The past tense of romanticize is romanticized.

Words near romanticize in the dictionary

  1. romanticists
  2. romanticity
  3. romanticizable
  4. romanticization
  5. romanticizations
  6. romanticize
  7. romanticized
  8. romanticizer
  9. romanticizers
  10. romanticizes
  11. romanticizing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: romanticize (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Neøn-romanticize.wav.

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