[syn: domesticate, cultivate, naturalize, naturalise, tame]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Naturalize \Nat"u*ral*ize\ (?; 135), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
Naturalized; p. pr. & vb. n. Naturalizing.] [Cf. F.
naturaliser. See Natural.]
1. To make natural; as, custom naturalizes labor or study.
[1913 Webster]
2. To confer the rights and privileges of a native subject or
citizen on; to make as if native; to adopt, as a foreigner
into a nation or state, and place in the condition of a
native subject.
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3. To receive or adopt as native, natural, or vernacular; to
make one's own; as, to naturalize foreign words.
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4. To adapt; to accustom; to habituate; to acclimate; to
cause to grow as under natural conditions.
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Its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might
yet be naturalized in the New England climate.
--Hawthorne.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Naturalize \Nat"u*ral*ize\, v. i.
1. To become as if native.
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2. To explain phenomena by natural agencies or laws, to the
exclusion of the supernatural.
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Infected by this naturalizing tendency. --H.
Bushnell.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
naturalize
v 1: make into a citizen; "The French family was naturalized
last year" [syn: naturalize, naturalise] [ant:
denaturalise, denaturalize]
2: explain with reference to nature
3: adopt to another place; "The stories had become naturalized
into an American setting" [syn: naturalize, naturalise]
4: make more natural or lifelike [syn: naturalize,
naturalise] [ant: denaturalise, denaturalize]
5: adapt (a wild plant or unclaimed land) to the environment;
"domesticate oats"; "tame the soil" [syn: domesticate,
cultivate, naturalize, naturalise, tame]