Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To increase or make as great as possible.
  • transitive verb Mathematics To find the largest value of (a function).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make as great as possible; raise or increase to the highest degree. Also spelled maximise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To increase to the highest degree.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb to make as large as possible
  • verb computing, graphical user interface to expand (a window) to fill the main display area

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make as big or large as possible
  • verb make the most of

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • It's not going to work because "take the existing biz and maximize" is the job for a direct marketer, or an ad guy, not an architect.

    November 2005 2005

  • It's not going to work because "take the existing biz and maximize" is the job for a direct marketer, or an ad guy, not an architect.

    Great Marketers are Architects 2005

  • The second answer is, I believe, if you look at how much money we're spending on health care, if we can redirect a lot of the money that would be saved from administrative costs and from insurance overcharges per person because of the system we have, if we could do more preventive and primary health care, if we can, in short, maximize the money we're now spending and keep people like you in big pools, I believe there would be enough money to cover your care.

    Transcript Of Town Hall Meeting Detroit ITY National Archives 1993

  • A basic argument behind identifying happiness as the thing-to-maximize is that 1) everything that is good is good for someone and 2) the only things that are good for someone are that person’s experiences (although some utilitarians, like Richard, think that the thing-to-maximize is not happiness but something else, like desire-fulfillment).

    Happiness Will Only Happen When It Can 2005

  • Buyers of the calls maximize their profits if the stock jumps more than 20% to top $21 by the middle of next month, according to a report by Interactive Brokers.

    Yahoo Bulls Hoping Google Ignites a Rally Chris Dieterich 2011

  • Time marches on, companies making money are always working a niche (sometimes a big monopolistic niche), and people doing well are always fighting to keep things the same (aka maximize their profit).

    Boing Boing 2009

  • "maximize" - or qualify for - more federal money to pay for what the state needs.

    ajc.com - News 2010

  • And at least Marvel explained it in real terms: it's a company, and it needs to "maximize" profits.

    More on Marvel’s price increases | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment 2009

  • I always open my Finder windows from one of, like, 5 places so as long as I open them, "maximize" them, then close them, they'll always open filling the screen, which is preferred.

    RightZoom Makes The OS X Maximise Button More Like Windows | Lifehacker Australia 2009

  • In addition, the winner, if it is not the current contractor, should "maximize" the use of current guards giving at least 50 percent of them the right to stay on if they want.

    Private security firm solicitations thriving in Afghanistan 2010

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