Verb

1. To become aware of a fact or situation.
   • He realized that he had left his umbrella on the train.
2. To make real; to convert from the imaginary or fictitious into the actual; to bring into concrete existence; to accomplish.
   • The objectives of the project were never fully realized.
   • Profits from the investment can be realized at any time by selling the shares.
   • We realize what Archimedes had only in hypothesis, weighting a single grain against the globe of earth. — Joseph Glanvill.
3. To cause to seem real; to impress upon the mind as actual; to feel vividly or strongly; to make one's own in apprehension or experience.
   • Many coincidences . . . soon begin to appear in them [Greek inscriptions] which realize ancient history to us. — Benjamin Jowett.
   • We can not realize it in thought, that the object . . . had really no being at any past moment. — Sir William Hamilton.
4. To convert (assets) into actual money.
   • By realizing the company's assets, the liquidator was able to return most of the shareholders' investments.
5. To convert into real property; to make real estate of.
6. To acquire as an actual possession; to obtain as the result of plans and efforts; to gain; to get; as, to realize large profits from a speculation.
   • Knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by diligent thrift realize a good estate. — Macaulay.
7. To convert any kind of property into money, especially property representing investments, as shares, bonds, etc.
   • Wary men took the alarm, and began to realize, a word now first brought into use to express the conversion of ideal property into something real. — Washington Irving.

Related terms

• real
• realism
• realistic
• reality
• realizable
• realization