monetize

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin monēta (“mint, coin, money”) with the English suffix -ize.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The Oxford Dictionary of English derives it instead from French monétiser,^[7] which the OED compares, recording the French verb from 1818 for making paper money into legal tender.^[2] The OED also notes that demonetize is recorded slightly earlier than this verb.^[2] The Latin noun is the source of money and mint;^[5][3] it came from Monēta, a title of the goddess Juno, near whose temple in Rome money was coined.^[8][3] The name is said to come from moneō (“to advise, warn”), but Etymonline calls that etymology difficult.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To put into circulation as money: Etymonline dates the verb to 1856.^[3] The OED's first quotations, from J. A. Ferris's Financial Economy of United States Illustrated (1867), have both the sense of making a metal standard currency and that of converting an asset or debt into money,^[2] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also dates the word to 1867.^[5] Dictionary.com gives 1875–80,^[9] the 1989 edition of the OED 1880.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The verb arose in the monetary debates of the later 19th century, when governments chose which metals to coin: Merriam-Webster Unabridged illustrates the first sense with demonetizing gold and monetizing silver.^[5] The OED now calls this use chiefly historical.^[2] Its use for converting assets or government debt into money is dated 1867 in the current OED and 1947 in the 1989 edition.^[2][10] From 1954 it also meant bringing an economy over to the use of money.^[2] The sense now most common, to make a product, service or audience produce revenue, is recorded from 1998, in the Boston Globe,^[2] and is especially used of Internet and computer activities.^[1][11]

Timeline

• 1856 – to put into circulation as money.^[3]
• 1867 – to establish a metal as standard currency; to convert an asset or debt into money.^[2][5]
• 1954 – to convert an economy to the use of money.^[2]
• 1998 – to exploit a product, service or audience so that it brings in revenue.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make a business, product, service or audience earn money; to make a profit from: The app's makers plan to monetize it through advertising.^[11][2][1]
2. To establish something as legal tender, or a metal as the standard of a national currency.^{[5][12][11][2]}
3. To coin into money.^[5][12][13]
4. To convert assets or government debt into money or currency.^[12][13][2]

Word family

• monetization
• remonetize
• demonetize

Related words

• money
• mint
• monetary

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
13. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster