Nominalizes

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The process of converting a word or phrase into a noun form, often altering its grammatical role in a sentence
2. A grammatical transformation that allows verbs or adjectives to function as nouns, thereby changing usage and meaning
3. The act of changing the category of a word, typically turning non-nouns into nouns for syntactical flexibility

Etymology: The verb "nominalize" is built from "nominal" plus the suffix "-ize". "Nominal" comes from Latin "nōminālis", meaning "of a name," from "nōmen," "name." It reached English through Middle French and Late Latin, where the Latin word had been given the grammatical sense of relating to nouns. The "-ize" ending has a longer journey. It descends from a Greek verb-forming suffix, "-izein," which passed into Late Latin as "-izāre" and then into Old French as "-iser." Middle English took it up as "-isen," and it later settled into the modern spelling "-ize." Its job is to turn a base into a verb meaning "to make or treat as," so "nominalize" means to make something function as a noun. The verb is a technical coinage, formed in English from these two parts, and it is used mainly in grammar and philosophy, where a verb, adjective or clause is converted into a noun phrase.

Synonyms: noun-forms, nounifies