Definition

1. Verb:
   • To place or confine (a person) in an institution, especially for care, treatment, or custody: The primary meaning refers to the act of officially admitting someone into a structured establishment like a hospital, prison, or care home, often for a long period.
   • To establish as a norm or convention within an organization or society: A secondary, more figurative meaning refers to making a practice, procedure, or pattern an accepted and permanent feature within a system.

Usage and Examples

• Verb (Placing in an institution):
  • The court decided to institutionalise the patient for her own safety and treatment.
  • In the past, families sometimes felt pressured to institutionalise elderly relatives.
• Verb (Establishing as a norm):
  • The company sought to institutionalise ethical practices at every level of management.
  • The new policy aims to institutionalise regular feedback sessions.

Advanced Usage and Notes

• The verb often carries a formal or bureaucratic connotation when referring to placing a person in an institution.
• In its figurative sense, it describes a process of embedding something so it becomes standard and routine.
• The spelling institutionalize is equally correct and more common in American English.

Variants and Related Words

• Institutionalisation (noun, UK spelling): The process or end result of being placed in an institution or of becoming an established norm.
  • The institutionalisation of the elderly is a complex social issue.
  • The institutionalisation of these procedures took several years.
• Institutional (adjective): Relating to or characteristic of an institution.
  • They faced institutional barriers.
• Institution (noun): An established organization or a long-standing custom.
  • Banks are key financial institutions.

Synonyms

• Commit: To send or admit to an institution (e.g., ).
• Confine: To keep or restrict someone within certain limits.
• Formalize: To make official or conventional (closer to the figurative sense).
• Standardize: To cause to conform to a standard.

Antonyms

• Deinstitutionalise: To remove (a person) from an institution and place them in a community-based setting.
• Liberate: To set free from confinement.
• Abolish: To formally put an end to (a system or practice).

Related Phrases and Concepts

• "To become institutionalised": This phrase can describe a person who has become so accustomed to life in a restrictive institution that they cannot function outside of it. It can also refer to a practice becoming an unchangeable fixture.
  • After decades in prison, he feared he had become institutionalised.
  • Bureaucratic red tape had become institutionalised within the department.

Verb

1. cause to be admitted; of persons to an institution
   • After the second episode, she had to be committed
   • he was committed to prison