as in to exploit
disapproving
to treat (something that cannot be owned or that everyone has a right to) like a product that can be bought and sold
Do we really want to commodify our water supply? I feel like our culture is being commodified.
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Recent Examples of commodify
If the sole aim of a company is to profit, extraction and exploitation become the norm as businesses seek new resources to commodify
The theory of shareholder wealth maximization has, in recent years, been met with significant scrutiny.
—
Aissa Dearing, JSTOR Daily, 9 Jan. 2025
Far from democratizing creativity, these projects frequently centralize authority and commodify the works of individual creators.
—Virginie Berger, Forbes, 17 Dec. 2024
This refers to the societal tendency to commodify every aspect of life, often to the detriment of authenticity and human connection.
—Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 11 Dec. 2024
Critics argue these policies effectively commodify citizenship, potentially undermining social cohesion.
—David Faris, Newsweek, 2 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for commodify
Aissa Dearing, JSTOR Daily, 9 Jan. 2025
Far from democratizing creativity, these projects frequently centralize authority and commodify the works of individual creators.
—Virginie Berger, Forbes, 17 Dec. 2024
This refers to the societal tendency to commodify every aspect of life, often to the detriment of authenticity and human connection.
—Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 11 Dec. 2024
Critics argue these policies effectively commodify citizenship, potentially undermining social cohesion.
—David Faris, Newsweek, 2 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for commodify
Recent Examples of Synonyms for commodify
Verb
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There has been no confirmation as yet that this has been exploited in the wild, and given it was found by Google’s Big Sleep AI threat hunter, the hope is that CVE-2025-9478 has been stopped before any such exploits are developed.—
Zak Doffman,
Forbes.com,
27 Aug. 2025
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Last month, Microsoft found that vulnerabilities of its servers for SharePoint, its online collaborative platform, were exploited by some Chinese state actors.—
John Liu,
CNN Money,
26 Aug. 2025
Verb
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That’s right: today’s most powerful AI models can be manipulated using the pretty much the same psychological tricks that work on humans.—
John Koetsier,
Forbes.com,
30 Aug. 2025
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Trump in August ordered the firing of the U.S. commissioner of Labor Statistics after the weak jobs report, accusing her without evidence of manipulating data.—
Bailey Schulz,
USA Today,
30 Aug. 2025
Verb
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The suit claims the city unconstitutionally abused its power by conspiring with for-profit tour operators and biased conservationists to deprive the owners’ vested rights.—
Bloomberg,
Mercury News,
28 Aug. 2025
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Federal prosecutors in New York said Maxwell helped Epstein recruit, groom and ultimately abuse girls as young as 14.—
Lauren Peller,
ABC News,
25 Aug. 2025
Verb
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The San Francisco startup is looking to commercialize nuclear fusion by using laser technology.—
Rob Nikolewski,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
28 Aug. 2025
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On the heels of some laboratory successes, researchers are racing to commercialize these devices.—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
25 Aug. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Commodify.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/commodify. Accessed 4 Sep. 2025.
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