privatize
verb
pri·vat·ize
ˈprī-və-ˌtīz 
privatized; privatizing; privatizes
: to make private
especially
: to change from public to private control or ownership
privatize an industry
The mayor's threat to privatize trash collection shook things up. —
Jeff Bailey
Jeff Bailey Examples of privatize in a Sentence
The city decided to privatize the municipal power company.
a proposal to privatize the health-care system
Recent Examples on the Web
Every attempt to mess with the program has backfired—most notoriously in the case of President George W. Bush's effort to privatize the program in 2005, which instantly took ten points off his approval rating and set the stage for his political downfall.
—Matt Robison, MSNBC Newsweek, 11 Aug. 2025
Still, trying to privatize much of the nation’s mortgage infrastructure during the worst housing affordability crisis in a generation will be no easy task, as critics have pointed out.
—Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes.com, 11 Aug. 2025
The idea of privatizing Social Security has been raised by Republicans before, but quickly abandoned.
—Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 31 July 2025
Similar themes crop up in the opera: Four female astronauts board a spaceship in hope of preserving the human race on a new planet, only for their mission to be privatized halfway through the journey by a venture capitalist, their liberated lives suddenly jeopardized.
—Hugh Morris, New York Times, 25 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for privatize
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Matt Robison, MSNBC Newsweek, 11 Aug. 2025
Still, trying to privatize much of the nation’s mortgage infrastructure during the worst housing affordability crisis in a generation will be no easy task, as critics have pointed out.
—Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes.com, 11 Aug. 2025
The idea of privatizing Social Security has been raised by Republicans before, but quickly abandoned.
—Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 31 July 2025
Similar themes crop up in the opera: Four female astronauts board a spaceship in hope of preserving the human race on a new planet, only for their mission to be privatized halfway through the journey by a venture capitalist, their liberated lives suddenly jeopardized.
—Hugh Morris, New York Times, 25 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for privatize
Cite this Entry
“Privatize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/privatize. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
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privatize
transitive verb
pri·va·tize
ˈprī-və-ˌtīz
privatized; privatizing
: to make private
especially
: to change (as a business or industry) from public to private control or ownership
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