Word.ws English Dictionary

weaponize

/ˈwɛpənaɪz/

weaponize verb: to make into a weapon.

Verb

weaponize (third-person singular simple present weaponizes, present participle weaponizing, simple past and past participle weaponized)

  1. (British, English, Oxford, US, transitive) To make into a weapon.
    • Anything can be weaponized. A big enough rock, dropped from a sufficient height, is a very good weapon.
    • The writer has to an unusually high degree the gift of being able to coin a telling phrase, though I do not like the verb in the sentence "However unassailable their arguments may be they could not weaponize their strength."1938, Scottish Geographical Magazine, volume 54, page 119
  2. (British, English, Oxford, US, transitive) To make more effective as a weapon.
    • To weaponize anthrax it is made more distributable, not more virulent.

Examples of weaponize in a sentence

  • They have weaponized the First Amendment.2018 August 2, Kara Swisher, “The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley”, in The New York Times, archived from the...
  • "California cannot afford to be held hostage by NIMBYs who weaponize CEQA to block student and affordable housing.2023 March 1, Aaron Kliegman, “Newsom declares war on environmentalists seeking to halt construction project”, in Fox News, archived from...
  • [I]f you’re against the weaponization of the Justice Department because you think it was weaponized against you, then you don’t make the situation worse by weaponizing it against your opponents.2025 January 27, Cameron Joseph, “John Bolton says he’s faced Trump’s retribution. He worries what Kash Patel might do.”, in The Christian...

All 17 example sentences with weaponize

Forms of weaponize

third-person singular presentweaponizes
present participleweaponizing
past participleweaponized
pastweaponized
alternative formweaponise

Past tense of weaponize: weaponized

Origin of weaponize

From weapon + -ize. First use appears c. 1938. See cite below.

Words formed from weaponize

Questions about weaponize

What does weaponize mean?
Weaponize means to make into a weapon.
How do you use weaponize in a sentence?
They have weaponized the First Amendment.
What part of speech is weaponize?
Weaponize is a verb.
How do you pronounce weaponize?
Weaponize is pronounced /ˈwɛpənaɪz/.
What is the past tense of weaponize?
The past tense of weaponize is weaponized.

Words near weaponize in the dictionary

  1. weaponist
  2. weaponists
  3. weaponizability
  4. weaponizable
  5. weaponization
  6. weaponize
  7. weaponized
  8. weaponized incompetence
  9. weaponizer
  10. weaponizers
  11. weaponizes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: weaponize (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)-Vealhurl-weaponize.wav.

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