sterilise

Other forms of sterilise

past tense

sterilised·

present participle

sterilising·

third person

sterilises·

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.

Questions about sterilise

What does sterilise mean?

sterilise means "make free from bacteria". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in sterilise?

sterilise has 3 syllables: ste-ri-lise. The stress falls on "ste".

What is another word for sterilise?

Close synonyms include sterilize, sterilize, desex, unsex, desexualize. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is sterilise a common word?

sterilise is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.