Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RE'AL-IZE, v.t. [Sp. realizar; Fr. realiser.]

1. To bring into being or act; as, to realize a scheme or project. We realize what Archimedes had only in hypothesis, weighing a single grain of sand against the globe of earth. – Glanville.
2. To convert money into land, or personal into real estate.
3. To impress on the mind as a reality; to believe, consider or treat as real. How little do men in full health realize their frailty and mortality. Let the sincere Christian realize the closing sentiment. – T. Scott.
4. To bring home to one's own case or experience; to consider as one's own; to feel in all its force. Who, at his fire-side, can realize the distress of shipwrecked mariners? This allusion must have had enhanced strength and beauty to the eye of a nation extensively devoted to a pastoral life, and therefore realizing all its fine scenes and the tender emotions to which they gave birth. – Dwight.
5. To bring into actual existence and possession; to render tangible or effective. He never realized much profit from his trade or speculations.