summarize

Etymology

It is formed from English summary + -ize.^[2][3][4][5] Summary is from Latin summārium (“an epitome, abstract”), from summa (“whole, totality, gist”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give a summary of a text or statement; to state something briefly: 1808, in the Morning Chronicle.^[2] Etymonline dates the verb to 1837 and calls it American English,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1871,^[4] Dictionary.com to 1870–75^[6] and the Shorter Oxford to the late 19th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The verb has kept the sense it had from the start, to state the substance of something briefly.^[2][3] An intransitive use, to give a summary, followed in 1847, in the Dublin Freeman's Journal.^[2] The noun summarization is recorded from the mid-19th century, summarizer from the late 19th and summarizable from the late 20th.^[5]

Timeline

• 1808 – transitive, to give a summary of something.^[2] Etymonline dates the verb to 1837,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1871.^[4]
• 1847 – intransitive, to give a summary.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give a short account of the main points of something; to sum up or recapitulate: Can you summarize the report in two sentences?^[7][4][2]
2. To make a summary; to state something briefly.^[4][2]
3. Of a thing, to be a summary of something.^[7][5]

Word family

• summarization
• summarizer
• summarizable
• unsummarized

Related words

• summary
• sum
• summation

Usage notes

The spelling summarise is chiefly British.^[7][6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins