Colonization

How to spell colonization

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce colonization

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does colonization mean?

1. nounThe act or process of establishing control over and settling in a territory, often inhabited by another people.
2. nounThe spread and establishment of a species, or of bacteria, into a new area or host.

Colonization in a sentence

• The museum exhibit traced the colonization of the coast over three centuries.

• The lab studied bacterial colonization of the wound after surgery.

• Her thesis examined the economic effects of colonization on the local population.

• Rapid colonization of the island by invasive plants alarmed the ecologists.

Where does colonization come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin colonus, which literally meant a farmer or settler, someone who worked the land, and from colere, meaning 'to cultivate or inhabit'. From colonus came colonia, a settlement of citizens planted in a new territory, the source of the English word 'colony'. English took 'colony' through Old French in the late medieval period, and later the verb 'colonize' was formed in the seventeenth century by adding the active suffix -ize. The noun 'colonization', naming the process or act of establishing colonies, followed soon after, built with the -ation ending that turns a verb into a noun of action. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle vowels and the -ize-based -ization ending: the same z sound that confuses writers in many similar words.

How the word is built

• colon- (from Latin colonus: settler, farmer)
• -iz(e) (verb-forming suffix)
• -ation (noun of action)

British and American spelling

Colonization is the American spelling. British English spells it colonisation.