v. Also visualise. [f. VISUAL a. + -IZE.]
1. trans. To form a mental vision, image or picture of (something not visible or present to the sight, or of an abstraction); to make visible to the mind or imagination.
Freq. in recent use, sometimes in connection with special branches of psychology or psychical research.
1817, 1831. [implied in Visualized ppl. a.]
1863. Tyndall, Heat, x. 350. We can hardly help attempting to visualise the atoms themselves.
1899. J. South, Chr. Charac., 165. Bunyan, in his immortal allegory, visualised the progress from justification to glory.
2. absol. or intr. To form a mental picture of something not visible or present, or of an abstract thing, etc.; to construct a visual image or images in the mind.
1871. J. A. Symonds, in H. F. Brown, Biog. (1895), II. 52. For numbers I have … no head. I do not visualise except in the most rudimentary way.
1882. Macm. Mag., XLVI. 485. This answers to the way in which I visualize for them.
1897. A. Lang, Dreams & Ghosts, ii. 58. A novelist of my acquaintance can ‘visualise’ so well that [etc.].
So Visualized ppl. a., made visual or visible to the mind; formed in the mind; Visualizing vbl. sb. (also attrib.) and ppl. a.
Carlyle’s use of visualized was objected to by Sterling (see Carlyle, Life Sterling, II. ii.).
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., I. ii. 48, note. The images are at least consistent, and it was the intention of the writers to mark the seasons by this allegory of *visualized puns.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. viii. A Voice, a Motion, an Appearance:—some embodied, visualised Idea in the Eternal Mind?
1883. F. Galton, Hum. Faculty (1910), 112. A third … abiding fantasy of certain persons is invariably to connect visualised pictures with words.
1880. E. White, Cert. Relig., 43. A pictorial *visualizing imagination, which can faithfully depict the scenes recorded.
1881. Sat. Rev., 30 July, 142/1. Mr. Francis Galton’s interesting illustrations of the power of visualizing.
a. 1901. F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality (1903), I. p. xli. It involves at least a great increase in his ordinary visualising power.
