verb (used without object), ma·te·ri·al·ized, ma·te·ri·al·iz·ing.
- to come into perceptible existence; appear; become actual or real; be realized or carried out: Our plans never materialized.
- to assume material or bodily form; become corporeal: The ghost materialized before Hamlet.
verb (used with object), ma·te·ri·al·ized, ma·te·ri·al·iz·ing.
- to give material form to; realize: to materialize an ambition.
- to invest with material attributes: to materialize abstract ideas with metaphors.
- to make physically perceptible; cause (a spirit or the like) to appear in bodily form.
- to render materialistic.
verb
- (intr) to become fact; actually happenour hopes never materialized
- to invest or become invested with a physical shape or form
- to cause (a spirit, as of a dead person) to appear in material form or (of a spirit) to appear in such form
- (intr) to take shape; become tangibleafter hours of discussion, the project finally began to materialize
- physics to form (material particles) from energy, as in pair production
v.1710, “represent as material,” from material (adj.) + -ize. Meaning “appear in bodily form” is 1880, in spiritualism. Related: Materialized; materializing.