How to Use privatize in a Sentence

privatize

verb
  • The city decided to privatize the municipal power company.
  • All of that was privatized in the 80s and 90s.
    — Fortune Editors, Fortune, 12 Nov. 2025
  • The next political fight will be about how much to privatize schools.
    — Jens Ludwig and Randall Stephenson, Twin Cities, 26 Dec. 2024
  • Should the program be reformed—or even privatized?
    — Miranda Marquit, Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Feb. 2026
  • There has been a lingering push by some to privatize air traffic control.
    — Scott Ramsden, Sun Sentinel, 26 May 2026
  • How does a society that privatizes risk cope with a public health crisis?
    — Sylvia Poggioli, The New York Review of Books, 29 Mar. 2020
  • The debate came as zoo and city officials were discussing plans to privatize.
    — Zaeem Shaikh, Dallas News, 11 Apr. 2023
  • Our military should not be privatized.
    — Mandy Taheri, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Oct. 2025
  • It was privatized in recent years after serving for decades as a piggy bank for politicians' pet projects.
    — David Lazarus, latimes.com, 1 May 2018
  • Both business magnates have cemented Texas as a key state in their plans to privatize space.
    — Scott Duncan, Dallas News, 28 Sep. 2022
  • Come to think of it, read about what happened when Chicago privatized its parking meters.
    — Ed Wallace, star-telegram.com, 9 June 2017
  • Gates and landscaping privatize the main house, which opens to bright living spaces with white walls and hardwood floors.
    — Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2020
  • Just below, a small spa includes a wellness space, complete with a sauna and wading pool, that can be privatized for an hour.
    — Vogue, 8 July 2024
  • Just below, a small spa includes a wellness space, complete with a sauna and wading pool, that can be privatized for an hour.
    — Vogue, 8 July 2024
  • Socialize the risk, in other words, and privatize the reward.
    — Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 3 Mar. 2021
  • If the Dixon school privatized, Bear told May, donations could help save it.
    — Annie Waldman, Slate Magazine, 19 Sep. 2017
  • But the British public is concerned that would lead to the breakup of the health service, with parts of it being privatized.
    — Ivana Kottasová, CNN, 4 June 2019
  • The board would phase out privatized nurses with the goal of having no contract or agency nurses by the end of the contract.
    — Hannah Leone, chicagotribune.com, 31 Oct. 2019
  • And labor and all the usual suspects, and privatizing public assets and on and on.
    — Recode Staff, Recode, 13 June 2018
  • Sportsmen’s groups say big, out-of-state money is behind the push to privatize public rivers flowing through private land.
    — Christine Peterson, Outdoor Life, 13 Mar. 2020
  • Therefore, the public can rest assured that the MUA will not be privatized by the state.
    — Amy S. Rosenberg, Philly.com, 20 Dec. 2017
  • None of his decisions are about slashing bureaucratic red tape or privatizing parts of the state.
    — Russell Muirhead, Foreign Affairs, 5 Sep. 2025
  • Trump dropped previous plans to try to privatize the service in 2018 during his first term.
    — Chris Isidore, CNN, 21 Feb. 2025
  • The government would have to approve any plans to privatize the company, according to the bill.
    — Paul Burkhardt, Bloomberg.com, 1 Oct. 2020
  • Westchester County officials are putting the brakes on a plan to privatize the county airport.
    — Joseph De Avila, WSJ, 16 May 2018
  • Adding the extra room allowed the duo to privatize the sleeping areas and keep the communal areas free-flowing.
    — Sarah Yang, Sunset Magazine, 21 Dec. 2022
  • When privatized group homes and programs are shuttering and workers are forced to work 80 hours a week just to make ends meet, something has to change.
    — Daniela Altimari, courant.com, 26 Apr. 2018
  • We are being billed based on an obsolete business model that privatizes the profits and socializes the costs.
    — U T Readers, San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 Jan. 2026
  • For years, the city owned the zoo until it was privatized in 2002 and became a non-profit entity.
    — Craig Hlavaty, Houston Chronicle, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Now there are those in Washington, Elon Musk and others, who want to privatize this postal service.
    — Kevin Sabet, Newsweek, 24 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'privatize.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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