commodify

Definition of commodifynext
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.

Related Words

Relevance

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of commodify Or will the troves of data being amassed on nonhuman animals be used to further commodify and objectify them? David Gruber, Time, 24 Apr. 2025 Publicis and other advertising firms argue that these new AI tools makes marketing more relevant to customers and less wasteful, but regulators — particularly in Europe — remain wary of systems that commodify vast amounts of personal data. Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 20 Mar. 2025 If the sole aim of a company is to profit, extraction and exploitation become the norm as businesses seek new resources to 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 See All Example Sentences for commodify
Recent Examples of Synonyms for commodify
Verb
  • Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have uncovered a new processor attack that can bypass defenses in Intel and AMD chips by exploiting a security gap lasting only a handful of instructions.
    Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Other Surrealists, meanwhile, seemed to take from animals a license to exploit other (generally female) bodies, as in Clovis Trouille’sJustine(1937), in which both a naked female figure and a lion are bound and captive.
    Kelly Presutti, ARTnews.com, 28 Aug. 2026
Verb
  • Last Wednesday, Meta reached a settlement with the attorneys general of forty-seven states, who had sued it for illegally manipulating the attention of children.
    Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker, 30 Aug. 2026
  • The finding could matter for quantum computers, where lasers are used to manipulate qubits and even tiny changes in their interactions can affect the accuracy of quantum operations.
    Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 30 Aug. 2026
Verb
  • The City Council instructed the city attorney to regulate phenibut, a drug that’s available at gas stations and being abused as a nervous system depressant.
    Sandra McDonald, Los Angeles Times, 29 Aug. 2026
  • Communities from Lansing, Michigan, to Pflugerville, Texas, are ending their relationship with Flock, largely over concerns regarding out-of-control surveillance, unwanted data sharing, high expenses, and reports of police abusing the tool.
    Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica, 28 Aug. 2026
Verb
  • The company is ultimately looking to commercialize through licensing, sale, or joint ventures, rather than investing in its own full-scale manufacturing facility.
    Cleo Levin, Footwear News, 1 Sep. 2026
  • Venezuelan experts stress that the reserves remain state property; foreign companies could receive rights to develop fields, extract oil, and commercialize their share.
    Tibisay Zea, Christian Science Monitor, 31 Aug. 2026

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Commodify.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/commodify. Accessed 3 Sep. 2026.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!