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say it: NOO-truh-lahyz
neutralize is a verb meaning "make politically neutral and thus inoffensive". It carries 6 recorded senses.
make ineffective by counterbalancing the effect of
“Her optimism neutralizes his gloom”
“This action will negate the effect of my efforts”
oppose and mitigate the effects of by contrary actions
“This will counteract the foolish actions of my colleagues”
make incapable of military action
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for neutralize come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.