The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sterilize \Ster"il*ize\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sterilized; p. pr. & vb. n. Sterilizing.] [Cf. F. st['e]riliser.]
To make sterile or unproductive; to impoverish, as land; to exhaust of fertility. [R.] ``Sterilizing the earth.''
--Woodward.(Biol.) To deprive of the power of reproducing; to render incapable of germination or fecundation; to make sterile.
(Microbiology, Medicine) To destroy all spores or germs in (an organic fluid or mixture) or on (a medical instrument), as by heat, so as to prevent contamination by bacteria or other organisms. A common method of sterilization in laboratories and medical facilities is to heat a liquid sample or an instrument in an autoclave.
To destroy all spores or germs on (a surface) by wetting with an antiseptic liquid, such as an alcoholic solution.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of sterilize English)
Usage examples of "sterilizing".
Smith had spent a fair bit of time on the Neanderthal practice of sterilizing criminals.
Next to the door, beneath a sterilizing ultraviolet light, sat a row of foam slippers, their sizes imprinted in large numbers on the toes.
He’s the mechanical engineer, runs the sterilizing furnace and laminar-flow system.
As the sterilizing agents began to rain down on them, Carson stood near the hatchway door, looking through the glass plate back into the Fever Tank.
Although it’s stored in liquid form, it has a low vapor point and will rapidly evaporate, filling the room with a sterilizing gas.
They’ve been shot to junk and caught in that sterilizing field—I saw the puff of gas when their fuel exploded.
Urban and Deneb were less absolute, yet they made no objection when Nikko fired the steerage engines, burning off some of the cell field—and all of their fuel—in a course correction aimed at taking the ship through the sterilizing heat of the great star's upper atmosphere… two years from now.
Null Boundary would flash through a sea of fire, destroying the Chenzeme encroachment, sterilizing the hull.
One of the sterilizing teams suddenly appeared, a trio of inhuman shapes studded with flaring nozzles, and was approaching him.
The assassin machine was calling in its various auxiliary units from the farther reaches of the wanderworld, the result being a sporadic parade of grotesque devices emerging from the various nooks and crannies in which they had been probing, sterilizing, or searching for God knew what.
With his foot he pressed a control on the base of Kira’s biobed and activated the sterilizing forcefield over the entrance to the surgical suite.
Tarses returned, passing through the sterilizing forcefield, which crackled softly at his passage.
Our calculations suggest that even if capsules received sterilizing procedures in space, the probability of contamination would still remain one in ten thousand, and perhaps much more.
He glanced around the room and found a small autoclave for sterilizing instruments.