Publicized

How to spell publicized

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce publicized

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does publicized mean?

1. verbMade something known to the public, especially through advertising or media coverage.

Publicized in a sentence

• The company widely publicized its new return policy before the holidays.

• The charity event was heavily publicized on local radio and in the newspaper.

Where does publicized come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word builds on the adjective 'public', which descends from the Latin publicus, meaning 'belonging to the people' or 'of the state'. That Latin form was itself shaped by populus, the word for 'the people', the same root that gives us 'population' and 'popular'. English took 'public' from Old French and Latin in the late 1300s, and centuries later writers added the productive verb-forming suffix -ize (from the Greek -izein, used to make verbs meaning 'to make or render') to coin 'publicize', meaning 'to make widely known'. The -ed ending then marks the simple past and past participle. The spelling trap sits in the middle and end: the soft 'c' sounds like an 's', and the verb takes the -ize ending in American and Canadian usage, while British writers typically prefer 'publicised'.

How the word is built

• public (from Latin publicus: of the people)
• -ize (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past tense)

British and American spelling

Publicized is the American spelling. British English spells it publicised.