Definition of "privatize" []

• To change (an industry or business, for example) from governmental or public ownership or control to private enterprise: "The strike ... was called to protest the ... government's plans to break up and privatize the deficit-ridden national railway system” ( Christian Science Monitor). (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "They have even barred the use of the word privatize."
• "(In Politics Lost, it's worth noting, Mr. Klein puts the word privatize in quotation marks, as though it was another irrational fear of those crazy libs.)"
• "By September Joe was spending political capital trying to convince voters that he did not want to destroy social security, even though he previously had said that he wanted to "privatize" it, which is the same thing."