posterize

English

WOTD – 10 September 2025

Etymology

The bottom image of a salamander (or other amphibian) was posterized (sense 1.1) from the top one after the image at the top in JPEG format (with 24-bit colour or 16.7 million colours) was converted to GIF format (256 colours).
The American basketballer LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers posterizing (sense 1.2) Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers in a game on March 21, 2022.

From poster +‎ -ize (suffix forming verbs denoting something which is done or made).[1] Sense 1.1 (“to reduce the number of colours”) refers to the original use of the process to produce posters. Sense 1.2 (“to score a slam dunk in basketball against (one or more opposing players) by leaping over them”) refers to the action being so spectacular as to warrant a photograph of it being printed on a poster.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpəʊstəɹaɪz/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈpoʊstəˌɹaɪz/
  • Audio (General American):(file)
  • Hyphenation: post‧er‧ize

Verb

posterize (third-person singular simple present posterizes, present participle posterizing, simple past and past participle posterized) (American and Oxford British spelling)

  1. (transitive)
    2. (graphic design, photography) To inadvertently or intentionally reduce the number of colours in (a photograph or other image), changing a continuous gradation of tone to several regions of fewer tones with abrupt changes from one tone to another.
    4. (Canada, US, basketball, slang) To score a slam dunk in basketball against (one or more opposing players) by leaping over them; also (by extension, sports, slang), to score a goal, a point, etc., in some other sport against (one or more opposing players) in a spectacular manner.
      • 1991 June 7, Michael Wilbon, “Great shot! Jordan’s best amazingly goes one better”, in The Washington Post‎[1], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 January 2025, page D01:
        Probably, [Sam] Perkins just wanted to get out of the way and not be "posterized," which is what happens when the dunkee is humiliated by the dunker. But [Michael] Jordan thought Perkins, his college teammate, would try to block the dunk, so he switched the ball from his right to his left hand at chest level. […] Jordan extended his left hand, and flipped the ball off glass, with reverse spin, into the basket. […] Only one other such spectacular shot in a game of consequence comes to mind, the time in the 1980 NBA finals when Julius Erving wrapped himself around the basket, going out of bounds while in the air in the process, and posterized Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Mark Landsberger with a reverse one-hand flip off the glass.
  2. (intransitive, graphic design, photography) To inadvertently or intentionally reduce the number of colours in a photograph or other image, changing a continuous gradation of tone to several regions of fewer tones with abrupt changes from one tone to another.

Alternative forms

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “posterize, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “posterize, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

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