COLONISE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does colonise mean? 

• COLONISE (verb)
  The verb COLONISE has 2 senses:

1. settle as a colony; of countries in the developing world

2. settle as colonists or establish a colony (in)

  Familiarity information: COLONISE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COLONISE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they colonise    ... he / she / it colonises   
Past simple: colonised   
Past participle: colonised   
-ing form: colonising   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Settle as a colony; of countries in the developing world

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

colonise; colonize

Context example:

Europeans colonized Africa in the 17th century

Hypernyms (to "colonise" is one way to...):

annex (take (territory) as if by conquest)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

decolonise (grant independence to (a former colony))

Derivation:

colonisation (the act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies)

coloniser (someone who helps to found a colony)

colony (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Settle as colonists or establish a colony (in)

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

colonise; colonize

Context example:

The British colonized the East Coast

Hypernyms (to "colonise" is one way to...):

locate; settle (take up residence and become established)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

colonisation (the act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies)

colony (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

 Context examples 

Regions closer to a river’s mouth are normally where species colonise the most.

(Amazon fish ‘face new threats’, SciDev.Net)

The tallest organisms were surrounded by the largest clusters of offspring, suggesting that the benefit of height was not more food, but a greater chance of colonising an area.

(Why life on Earth first got big, University of Cambridge)

Pathogen zoospores germinate on the surface of liverworts and eventually colonise the liverwort tissues, but in some areas we saw an accumulation of a purple/red pigment in the liverwort tissues where the pathogen was rarely detected, said Dr Philip Carella, lead author of the study.

(Ancient defence strategy continues to protect plants from pathogens, University of Cambridge)

The research, led by the University of Cambridge, found that the most successful organisms living in the oceans more than half a billion years ago were the ones that were able to ‘throw’ their offspring the farthest, thereby colonising their surroundings.

(Why life on Earth first got big, University of Cambridge)