Meaning & use
normalize
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To make something that used to seem strange or wrong feel ordinary and acceptable to most people.
Grammar: Takes an object: normalize therapy. British spelling is normalise.
Patterns
- normalize something
- normalize doing something
Public figures talking about their illness helped normalize seeking treatment.
Some critics say the show normalizes rude behavior.
Schools can normalize mistakes by letting students share what went wrong.
verbtransitive or intransitive
To return to a usual or regular state, or to bring something back to that state.
Grammar: Both forms exist: relations normalized; normalize relations.
Patterns
- normalize relations with someone
- something normalizes
Traffic normalized an hour after the accident was cleared.
The two countries moved to normalize relations after years of tension.
Her blood pressure normalized once she changed her diet.
verbtransitivetechnicalcomputing
To adjust numbers or data to a common scale or standard format so they can be compared.
Grammar: Used in statistics, computing and databases.
Patterns
- normalize data
- normalize something to something
Before training the model, we normalize each feature to a range between zero and one.
The analyst normalized the sales figures by population.
Word forms
| third person singular | normalizes |
|---|---|
| past tense | normalized |
| past participle | normalized |
| -ing form | normalizing |
Common combinations
- normalize relations
- Both governments agreed to normalize relations.
- normalize behavior
- We should not normalize bullying at school.
- normalize data
- You must normalize the data before comparing the groups.
- help normalize
- Open conversations help normalize mental health care.
- gradually normalize
- Prices should gradually normalize over the year.
Synonyms and how they differ
- standardize
- Standardize means to make things follow one set pattern, which fits data and procedures better than attitudes.
- legitimize
- Legitimize stresses making something seem proper or lawful, while normalize stresses making it seem usual.
- stabilize
- Stabilize means to stop something from changing wildly, and fits situations returning to calm.
- regularize
- Regularize is a formal word for making something follow rules or become official, and is rarer than normalize.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: normalize or standardize?
normalize vs standardize
To normalize can mean making something seem acceptable, whereas to standardize means making things the same according to a rule.
Practice
The documentary aims to ___ conversations about grief so that people feel less alone.
Choose one answer.
Normalize means to make something feel ordinary and acceptable. Neutralize would mean to cancel an effect, and penalize and finalize do not fit the sense.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “normalize”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.