Personalized

How to spell personalized

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce personalized

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does personalized mean?

1. verbMade or adapted to suit a particular individual, often by adding their name or specific preferences.

Personalized in a sentence

• The gift shop sells personalized mugs printed with any name you choose.

• Her bank sent a personalized statement listing only the accounts she actually held.

Where does personalized come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base of this word is 'person', which English took through Old French from the Latin persona, a word that originally meant the mask worn by an actor and then, by extension, the character or individual that the mask represented. From 'person' English built the adjective 'personal', meaning belonging to a particular individual, and then formed the verb 'personalize' by adding the productive ending -ize, which comes ultimately from the Greek -izein and means 'to make' or 'to render'. The full chain therefore reads as 'to make something belong to a particular person'. The verb appears in the 1700s and grew enormously useful in the modern age of monogrammed goods, custom orders and tailored marketing. The spelling trap lies in the quiet, unstressed middle: writers reliably hear the strong opening and the -ized ending but blur the 'son-al' in between, and the z-sound also tempts some to question the -iz- against the British -is- variant.

How the word is built

• person (from Latin persona: a person, originally an actor's mask)
• -al (adjective: relating to)
• -ize (verb: to make or render)
• -ed (past tense / past participle)

British and American spelling

Personalized is the American spelling. British English spells it personalised.