How to Use colonize in a Sentence
colonize
verb- Weeds quickly colonized the field.
- The island had been colonized by plants and animals.
- The area was colonized in the 18th century.
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Much of the roof is gone, and weeds colonize what remains of the floor.
—Joshua Hammer, Smithsonian, 21 Nov. 2019
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Space agencies from around the world hope to colonize the moon one day.
—Nora McGreevy, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 May 2020
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In the film, he is sent to colonize a new world known as Niflheim and dies dozens of times in the process.
—Christian Zilko, IndieWire, 10 Jan. 2025
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Jeff Bezos seems to have run out of things to colonize here on Earth.
—Kara Alaimo, CNN, 7 June 2021
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So part of the research was, what made Africa colonized?
—Faith Cummings, Teen Vogue, 22 Feb. 2018
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The hero who is going to colonize Mars doesn’t know what Mars looks like.
—Fox News, 24 June 2019
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The microbes that colonize cheese come from many places.
—Ute Eberle, Discover Magazine, 27 Nov. 2022
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In Italy, the truffles grow in select spots, colonizing near the roots of oak, beech and poplar trees.
—Bernhard Warner, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2023
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At the time the helmet was in use, the Roman Empire was in the early stages of colonizing Britain.
—Brendan Rascius, Miami Herald, 25 Mar. 2024
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Since the first blocks of marble were sunk in 2015—and rapidly colonized by fish and plants— the gallery has grown steadily.
—Tristan Kennedy, WIRED, 19 Mar. 2024
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By that year, waterwheels had colonized the edges of Big Pond in New York.
—Marion Renault, New York Times, 13 Aug. 2019
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And don't forget, Elon's vision is to go to Mars and colonize Mars.
—Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 24 June 2024
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The film stars Robert Pattinson and centers on a clone that’s sent to colonize a new world.
—Carolyn Giardina, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Mar. 2023
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The condiment had been colonized by multiple molds that looked like green-and-white ridges across the red ground.
—Thomas Hine, Philly.com, 5 July 2018
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The pressure pushes out colonized sap that oozes down the branches and trunk.
—oregonlive, 27 Oct. 2019
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This is not the first time terns have navigated to the Long Beach Harbor to colonize.
—Los Angeles Times, 16 July 2021
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My mother’s country has been colonized twice: first by the Spanish, then by the U.S.
—The Root Staff, The Root, 16 Feb. 2018
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Greenland was colonized by the Danish priest Hans Egede in 1721.
—Adam Price, The Atlantic, 7 Feb. 2025
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England asks about colonizing the world for spices, only to find out salt is too much.
—Bethy Squires, Vulture, 11 Mar. 2024
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Still, there's a mad scramble under way to colonize the streets.
—Bernhard Warner, Fortune, 14 June 2021
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The first Europeans began colonizing what is now South Africa in 1652, with the arrival of the Dutch.
—Sisonke Msimang, Foreign Affairs, 12 Dec. 2017
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The ship moved on, and Spain didn’t colonize California until the late 1700s.
—Los Angeles Times, 5 July 2022
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But the backdrop is a very near future where a race of aliens has colonized Earth through economic means.
—Kaely Monahan, The Arizona Republic, 17 Aug. 2023
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France, which colonized Niger, has about 5,000 forces in the area, according to McKenzie.
—Faith Karimi, CNN, 18 Oct. 2017
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Then in the mid-1800s, the pioneers came from the East Coast with their belief in Manifest Destiny, their moral right to colonize the land.
—Sunny Dooley, Scientific American, 8 July 2020
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The new romantic comedy is set in the future, where the best of the best humans reside and colonize on Mars.
—Samantha Olson, Seventeen, 30 Mar. 2022
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Through Fallon and Seth Meyers, the show has colonized weeknight late-night television.
—Robert Lloyd, Twin Cities, 26 Jan. 2025
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'colonize.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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