sterilize
/ˈstɛɹɪlaɪz/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.62 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To kill, deactivate (denature), or destroy (break apart) all living, viable microorganisms and spores on a surface, in a fluid, or contained in a compound, such as culture media or a medical product.
American usage; Transitive verb
verb
To render a planet like Earth permanently uninhabitable to all life, including even microbes, causing their complete extinction.
American usage; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "If monogeny is determined exclusively by a cytoplasmic factor, then it is easy to see that the factor will either die out (if it causes arrhenogeny) or will become fixed and thereby sterilize the population (if it causes thelygeny)."
- "In China, the issue of forced abortions has resurfaced with the allegations by escaped activist Chen Guangcheng, but the outgoing premier Wen Jiabao has publicly called for a ban not only on forced abortion, but also of “fetus gender identification.” Nevertheless, many women who have abortions in China are also sterilized against their will."
- "One machine in which Mr. Taylor takes special pride is a salmon canner, which engulfs a whole salmon, decapitates and decaudates it, skins it, blows out its viscera, cuts it into pieces, deposits them in the can, sterilizes them […]"
- "The bottled juice must be heated to a temperature and for a time sufficient to attain a sterilizing temperature at the coolest point, usually the center of the bottle."
- "[…] (minus, of course, any information that might identify the agent and other operational personnel), or he might code it or "sterilize" it, and reward the foreign station chief in some other way."
- "The same phenomenon is also detectable in the records of the meetings of NATO committees: the priority of avoiding any manifestation of internal disagreements led to the production of 'sterilized' records of discussions which evidently were significantly more lively than shown in the official papers."
Etymology
Etymology tree English sterile Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English sterilize From sterile + -ize.
Usage
- American usage
- Transitive verb