Dictionary

unitize en · VERB

Etymology

Etymology tree English unit Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English unitize From unit + -ize.

Meanings

1. To convert, package, or organize into one or more units.
   • Pass-through stretch wrappers are used to unitize loads at high speeds. 1998, James A. Tompkins, Jerry D. Smith, The Warehouse Management Handbook, page 771:
   • In contrast, in social interactions it is often not obvious how to unitize events or how to score them. What, for example, constitutes a unit of friendliness? 1999, Ziva Kunda, Social Cognition: Making Sense of People, page 80:
   • The container era 1966-95: The solution was to unitize general cargo. Standardizing the cargo unit allowed liner companies to invest in mechanized systems […]. 1997, Martin Stopford, Maritime Economics, page 340:
   • At any rate the general exterior is the same. And though we may attach shades of difference to them, and they may work themselves out in the final result, there are enough points of agreement to make men cohere; to unitize them. a. 1893, Henry Ward Beecher, The Original Plymouth Pulpit: Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher in Plymouth, page 303
2. To manage as a unit.
   • This notion is illustrated empirically by the desire among oil producing firms to unitize oil fields early to avoid the potentially large losses of common-pool extraction. 2002, Eric Brousseau, Jean-Michel Glachant, The Economics of Contracts: Theories and Applications, page 146:

Forms

Deriveds

unitizer

Relateds

unitary · unite · unionize · unionise · unitization