Nat"u*ral*ize (?; 135), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Naturalized (#); p. pr. & vb. n. Naturalizing (#).] [Cf. F. naturaliser. See Natural.]

1.

To make natural; as, custom naturalizes labor or study.

2.

To confer the rights and privileges of a native subject or citizen on; to make as if native; to adopt, as a foreigner into a nation or state, and place in the condition of a native subject.

3.

To receive or adopt as native, natural, or vernacular; to make one's own; as, to naturalize foreign words.

4.

To adapt; to accustom; to habituate; to acclimate; to cause to grow as under natural conditions.

Its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England climate. Hawthorne.

 

© Webster 1913.


Nat"u*ral*ize, v. i.

1.

To become as if native.

2.

To explain phenomena by natural agencies or laws, to the exclusion of the supernatural.

Infected by this naturalizing tendency. H. Bushnell.

 

© Webster 1913.