Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To turn into or treat as a commodity.

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

  • verb rare To transform into a commodity; commodify is the more common term

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word commoditize.

Examples

  • But as more and more corporations find bright new ways to "commoditize" their workforce and offshore their "labor resources," the talented and committed will find the pitfalls of life outside of a Fortune 500 to be worth the risks.

    Caveats for those moving to Mexico who are too young to retire 2006

  • Volcker's pragmatic solution to the problem of declining production was to free up the administrative, finance and service sectors of the economy: to "commoditize," and take proper competitive advantage of, the vast consumer market itself.

    Larry Abrams: The Great Recession 2008

  • (government requirements) we should seek also to 'commoditize' biofuels and help create an international market to increase their trade by harmonizing fuel standards,

    CattleNetwork 2008

  • The big question is - what will commoditize Google??

    free at last? 2009

  • Is it possible to commoditize or replace the ad-clicking consumer?

    Marketing 2010

  • Is it possible to commoditize or replace the ad-clicking consumer?

    free at last? 2009

  • The big question is - what will commoditize Google??

    8 posts from July 2009 2009

  • Is it possible to commoditize or replace the ad-clicking consumer?

    free at last? 2009

  • The big question is - what will commoditize Google??

    Marketing 2010

  • Is it possible to commoditize or replace the ad-clicking consumer?

    8 posts from July 2009 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • WORD: commoditize

    DEFINITIONS:

    (1) As defined by Wiktionary above.

    (2) To depersonalize ; to objectify -- ' to present or regard as an object. "Because we have objectified animals, we are able to treat them impersonally” ( Barry Lopez). ' -- American Heritage Dictionary

    (3) To reduce a living being to a fungible medium of exchange, such repackaging being for the purpose of trivializing all objections which might otherwise be raised by inconveniently squeamish champions of morality.

    EXAMPLE:

    ' In E.B. White's 1952 children's novel Charlotte's Web, Charlotte the spider explains to Wilbur the pig that life on the farm is not what it appears to be.

    ' Homer Zuckerman, the farmer, slaughters pigs, she warns.

    ' These days, Wilbur would have more to fear. He'd be squeezed against scores of other swine, hoofing a steel grate floor, while growing fatter and fatter on a factory farm. He'd be commoditized into a hog futures contract. Then some trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange could swap his lifeless body in a millisecond.

    ' If you could carve one second into a thousand slices, just one of those slices would be a millisecond and about how quickly you could trade dead Wilbur. The trader wouldn't have any interest in him as the more sumptuous part of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, but merely as a medium of exchange. '

    --- Al Lewis. "Caught in a Web". 05 May 2013. From Al's Emporium, a column appearing in The Wall Street Journal.

    September 24, 2013