Definition

1. Verb (transitive):

   • To make something contemporary; to adapt or represent something so that it appears to belong to the present time. This involves updating or modifying the style, setting, or context of something (like a story, artwork, or idea) to align with current tastes, technology, or sensibilities.
   • To cause events to be represented as occurring at the same time or in a modern context. This meaning often relates to presenting historical or fictional events in a synchronized, concurrent, or modernized framework.

2. Verb (intransitive):

   • To occur at the same time; to be contemporary. This is a less common usage meaning to exist or happen simultaneously with something else.

Usage and Examples

• Transitive Verb:

  • The director chose to contemporize the classic play by setting it in a modern office. (The director updated the play's setting to make it feel current.)
  • Museums often contemporize their exhibits with interactive digital displays to engage younger visitors. (Museums modernize their exhibits using current technology.)
  • The textbook attempts to contemporize historical figures by discussing their motivations in modern psychological terms. (The textbook adapts the representation of historical figures to fit a modern perspective.)

• Intransitive Verb:

  • These social movements contemporize with major technological shifts. (These movements happen at the same time as major technological changes.)

Advanced Usage

• In Academic/Artistic Contexts: The term is frequently used in criticism, history, and the arts to discuss the act of modernization.
  • The artist's goal is not to replicate but to contemporize Renaissance techniques for a 21st-century audience.
• In Business/Marketing: Used to describe updating a brand or product line.
  • The company's rebranding strategy seeks to contemporize its image without losing its heritage.

Variants and Related Words

• Contemporization (noun): The act or process of making something contemporary.
  • The contemporization of the curriculum included adding modules on digital literacy.
• Contemporary (adjective): Belonging to or occurring in the present; modern.
  • She studies contemporary art.
• Contemporaneous (adjective): Existing or occurring at the same time.
  • The two wars were contemporaneous.

Synonyms

• Modernize: To make modern in style or function.
• Update: To make something more modern or current.
• Synchronize (for the "represent as co-occurring" sense): To cause to occur or operate at the same time or rate.
• Adapt: To make suitable for a new use or purpose.

Antonyms

• Antiquate: To make old or obsolete.
• Dated: Old-fashioned; not modern.
• Archaisze: To make something seem archaic or deliberately old-fashioned.

Related Phrases/Concepts

• Bring up to date: An informal phrase meaning to modernize.
  • We need to bring the software up to date.
• Set in a modern context: A descriptive phrase for the act of contemporizing.
  • The novel sets the ancient myth in a modern context.

Verb

1. arrange or represent events so that they co-occur
   • synchronize biblical events
2. happen at the same time