4 results for: finalize

Usage Note: Once considered objectionable because of its association with the language of bureaucracy, finalize is steadily gaining acceptance. In the late 1960s, 90 percent of the Usage Panel found the example finalize plans for a class reunion unacceptable; in the late 1980s, 71 percent disapproved. By 1997, only 28 percent of the Usage Panel found it unacceptable in the sentence We will send you more information once we finalize plans for the reunion. Although substitutes for finalize can be found among complete, conclude, make final, and put into final form, none of these is an exact synonym. This may be why resistance to finalize is eroding. See Usage Note at prioritize.