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
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
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
See All Example Sentences for commodify
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
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
See All Example Sentences for commodify
Recent Examples of Synonyms for commodify
Verb
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Venezuela and the Caribbean nation — who in the 1990s signed a delimitation treaty establishing the terms for exploiting any hydrocarbon deposits on both sides of the border strip — share the Gulf of Paria, an inland sea at Venezuela’s westernmost end and south of the island of Trinidad.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
11 May 2026
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Social media captures attention by exploiting social reward — approval, outrage, belonging.—
Jonathan Avery,
STAT,
11 May 2026
Verb
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In most cases, similar to engine controls, this climate control system can be checked for codes and the various modes manipulated with a scan tool.—
John Paul Senior Manager Public Affairs And Traffic Safety Aaa Northeast,
Hartford Courant,
16 May 2026
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This likely created new evolutionary pressure for specialized hand use during tasks such as carrying objects, manipulating tools, or gesturing.—
Rupendra Brahambhatt,
Interesting Engineering,
16 May 2026
Verb
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The university still faces five active federal lawsuits in the Southern District of Ohio from 236 men alleging Strauss abused them.—
Corky Siemaszko,
NBC news,
11 May 2026
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There have been several cases of clergy abusing children in Sri Lanka, but the latest arrest involves the most senior monk to be accused of such a crime.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
11 May 2026
Verb
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The pact also gives Hengrui the rights to commercialize four immunology drugs from Bristol in that region.—
Andrew Joseph,
STAT,
12 May 2026
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In 2019, Microsoft agreed to invest $1 billion in OpenAI’s for-profit arm and provide cloud computing services in exchange for rights to a share of profits and an exclusive license to commercialize one of OpenAI’s models for a year.—
David Ingram,
NBC news,
11 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Commodify.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/commodify. Accessed 18 May. 2026.
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