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normalize

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 28 May 2006

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From normal +‎ -ize.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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normalize (third-person singular simple present normalizes, present participle normalizing, simple past and past participle normalized)

  1. (transitive) To make normal, to make standard.
    There is little hope that the two countries will normalize relations; their governments seem to hate each other and would just as soon stay on bad terms.
    • 2014 March 27, Robin Marantz Henig, “Fictional Plotlines and Real Assisted Suicide”, in The Atlantic‎[1]:
      Advocacy groups have long known the power of TV plot lines. Back in the 1980s, the Harvard School of Public Health mounted a campaign to normalize the idea of a “designated driver” to reduce drunk driving.
  2. (transitive) To format in a standardized manner, to make consistent.
    We'll need to normalize these statements before we can compare them.
  3. (statistics, transitive) To reduce the variations by excluding irrelevant aspects.
    After we properly normalize the measurements with respect to age, gender, geography and economic considerations, there remains little evidence of a difference between the two groups.
    • 1991, Christopher D. Manning, Hinrich Schütze, Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, →ISBN, page 299:
      The Dice coefficient normalizes for length by dividing by the total number of non-zero entries. We multiply by 2 so that we get a measure that ranges from 0.0 to 1.0 with 1.0 indicating identical vectors.
    • 2015 August 7, “Effects of Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation on the Masticatory Muscles and Physiologic Sleep Variables in Adults with Cerebral Palsy: A Novel Therapeutic Approach”, in PLOS ONE‎[2], →DOI:
      It is possible that electrical stimulation may also act centrally, neuromodulating the altered muscle contractibility mechanism, recruiting a larger number of muscle fibers and normalizing the tone of the masticatory, hyoid and pharyngeal muscles [38 ,39 ].
  4. (rail transport, transitive) To return a set of points (switches) to the normal position.
    Antonym: reverse
  5. (rail transport, intransitive, of points) To return to the normal position from the reverse position.
    Antonym: reverse
  6. (computing, databases, transitive) To subject to normalization; to eliminate redundancy in (a model for storing data).
    Hyponym: canonicalize
  7. (metallurgy, transitive) To anneal (steel) for the purpose of decreasing brittleness and increasing ductility.
    • 2005 November 29, National Transportation Safety Board, “Tank Car Crashworthiness”, in Collision of Norfolk Southern Freight Train 192 With Standing Norfolk Southern Local Train P22 With Subsequent Hazardous Materials Release at Graniteville, South Carolina, January 6, 2005‎[3], archived from the original on 17 June 2022, page 50:
      Charpy impact testing showed that the normalized steel in the tank shell of the punctured chlorine car had a fracture toughness that was significantly greater than the fracture toughness of the non-normalized steels of the catastrophically ruptured tank cars involved in the derailment of a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train in Minot, North Dakota, in January 2002. The steel in the Minot tank cars exhibited relatively low fracture toughness, and cracks propagated rapidly around the circumference of each tank. The higher fracture toughness in the Graniteville tank car contributed to the relatively quick arrest of the crack even though there was brittle fracture in its outer portions.
  8. (mathematics, transitive) To divide a vector by its magnitude to produce a unit vector.

Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Portuguese

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Verb

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normalize

  1. inflection of normalizar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative
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