stabilise

verbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,752 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: stabilised, stabilising, stabilises

To stabilise is to make something steady and stop it changing. Stabilise the patient, prices stabilised, stabilise the building.

In medicine it is the first job in an emergency, since stabilising a patient means stopping them getting worse before anything else is attempted. Americans spell it stabilize.

Definitions of stabilise

1verbstabiliseTo make something steady and stop it changing.B2+
“The government raised interest rates to stabilise the falling currency.”

stabilise is a steadying.

Also accepted in games: stabilize

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*steh₂-
Middle English
stable
English
stable
English, today
stabilise

From stable + -ise. stable comes from Middle English stable. From Middle English stable, borrowed from Anglo-Norman estable, from Latin stabulum.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

stabilise in the wild

Enzymes that catalyse multi-step reactions can have multiple oxyanion holes that stabilise different transition states in the reaction.
Oxyanion hole
Before being separated from the Black Arrow launch vehicle, it would be spun on a turntable using six radial 'Imp' solid rocket motors to spin stabilise the satellite.
Waxwing (rocket motor)
Timor Leste, since its creation in 1999, has received aid from many different parts of the International Community to help stabilise this new country.
Foreign aid to Timor-Leste
The third and fourth were held on 4 June on measures to stabilise the federal construction market and protecting currency, both of which were approved.
1972 Swiss referendums

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

stable

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