English

Alternative forms

• muscularise

Verb

muscularize ‎(third-person singular simple present muscularizes, present participle muscularizing, simple past and past participle muscularized)

1. To increase the size of the muscles.
   • 1993, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder‎, page 159

     Advanced freehand exercises shape and muscularize the body in a unique way; all the world's best-built men include them in their workouts.

2. (transitive) To make (something) more masculine, virile, or militaristic.
   • 2002, L. Dean Allen, Rise Up, O Men of God: the Men and Religion Forward Movement and Promise Keepers‎, page 73

     Perhaps the most famous example of this impulse to muscularize Christianity in the early twentieth century was evangelist Billy Sunday.