Stylized

How to spell stylized

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stylized

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stylized mean?

1. adjectiveRepresented in a simplified, conventional, or decorative way rather than realistically.
2. verbPast tense of stylize: depicted or designed something in a conventional, non-realistic manner.

Stylized in a sentence

• adjective

  The company logo features a stylized image of a soaring bird.

• verb

  The designer stylized the mountain into a few clean triangles.

• adjective

  The animation used a flat, stylized look instead of lifelike detail.

• verb

  The studio deliberately stylized the characters to look like paper cut-outs.

Where does stylized come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin stilus, which named the pointed metal instrument that Romans used to scratch letters into wax tablets. Because a writer's handwriting and turn of phrase revealed something personal, the word drifted from the tool to the manner of writing, and then to manner or fashion in general. English took it through Old French as 'style', and the spelling later picked up a 'y' through mistaken association with the Greek word stylos, meaning a pillar or column. The verb 'stylize' was coined in the nineteenth century to mean representing something according to a fixed convention rather than to lifelike accuracy, and 'stylized' is its past-participle and adjective form. The trap in the spelling is the unstressed ending and the choice of 'z', plus the 'y' that came from that old Greek mix-up.

How the word is built

• styl- (from style: a manner or form)
• -ize (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past-participle/adjective suffix)