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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
polarize
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The community has been polarized by the police brutality case.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A second election was held and a new Duma convened in 1907, but it was even more polarized than its predecessor.
▪ And the argument over Manchester polarized the two ends of the company.
▪ During my public career, everything I did polarized people, was controversial.
▪ Evangelism and social action are polarized instead of being integrated as a united mission agenda for the Church.
▪ In all likelihood, the racially polarized vote will reinforce Mississippi's negative image far beyond its borders.
▪ It may appear that male and female students are polarized on the basis of biology.
▪ Player salaries are similarly being polarized.
▪ The masculine and feminine positions delineated here are related to polarized versions of the two self-strategies described in previous chapters.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Polarize

Polarize \Po"lar*ize\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Polarized; p. pr. & vb. n. Polarizing.] [Cf. F. polariser.] To communicate polarity to.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
polarize

1811, in optics, from French polariser, coined by French physicist Étienne-Louis Malus (1775-1812) as a term in optics, from Modern Latin polaris "polar" (see polar). Transferred sense of "to accentuate a division in a group or system" is first recorded 1949 in Arthur Koestler. Related: Polarized; polarizing.

Wiktionary
polarize

vb. 1 (context transitive US English) To cause to have a polarization. 2 (context transitive US English) To cause a group to be divided into extremes.

WordNet
polarize
  1. v. cause to vibrate in a definite pattern; "polarize light waves" [syn: polarise]

  2. cause to concentrate about two conflicting or contrasting positions [syn: polarise]

  3. become polarized in a conflict or contrasting situation [syn: polarise]

Wikipedia

Usage examples of "polarize".

What Caamas is going to do is polarize good, honest people, all of whom genuinely want justice but differ violently as to what that justice should consist of.

He also wore a pair of polarized goggles against the dazzling mountain light.

The drab wash of the rainy Auburn twilight leaked through the partially polarized window, giving the one-room doss a dull, tired illumination that perfectly suited my mood.

A number of the smart flockers had already polarized their attention to a fellow wearing shabby camouflage who sat in front of the museum in a wheelchair, but they were offhand in their approach.

It was only when they were pushed too far, as on April 10, when Dom Gerle insisted that the Assembly declare the Roman Church the only religion of state in France, that positions became dangerously polarized.

Her entire face was covered by a custom-molded polypropylene mask, the eyeholes fitted with polarized lenses.

His hands were encased in heated mittens, his face protected from the winds by the furred edge of his hood, a thick wool scarf, and a pair of polarized goggles.

Another embedded itself in his beautiful shield, but the god-forged layer of polarized gold blocked it.

The half-centimeter beam fountained into the shaft, polarized, directable.

The bridge had been fitted with ceiling-to-deck polarized windows that offered a sweeping view of the surrounding sea.

Brown stares at Mariella, his face ghostly behind the heavily polarized visor of his helmet.

He knew that he should be able to pick out the Sun, for he knew that the light from the sky, dispersed by the clouds of Venus, was polarized, made to wiggle up-and-down or sideways, instead of in all directions.

He knew that these spectacles were supposed to blank out polarized light, let him see the Sun itself.

Under polarized light it looks as if there are fracture planes separating the chunk into distinct regions.

Twenty meters above them, earthlight slanted down through thick panes of polarized glass, illuminating a miniature rain forest.