v. [ad. F. symétriser (in sense 1 below), or f. SYMMETRY + -IZE.]
1. intr. To be symmetrical; to correspond symmetrically, rare–1.
1786. H. Walpole, Lett. to C’tess Ossory, 28 Sept. With a mound of vermilion on the left side of his forehead to symmetrise with a wen on the right.
2. trans. To make symmetrical; to reduce to symmetry.
1796. Burke, Let. Noble Ld., Wks. VIII. 46. He would soon have supplied every deficiency, and symmetrized every disproportion.
1853. Blackw. Mag., LXXIV. 735. A picturesque scene, however seemingly unsymmetrical, will be found … to be symmetrised at least aerially, by the influence of light, shade and colour.
1874. Contemp. Rev., Aug., 439. Charm of incident, grace of narrative,… majesty of eloquence,—all perfectly symmetrized with incomparable artistic skill.
Hence Symmetrizing ppl. a.; also Symmetrization, the action or process of symmetrizing.
1854. Fraser’s Mag., XLIX. 149. The philosophic classes have never admitted that a moral change can be effected by political change, that a realized idea needs symmetrization in statute.
1862. R. H. Patterson, Ess. Hist. & Art, 60. When the several parts of an object … present a resistance to its [sc. the mind’s] synthetical or symmetrising power,—it imputes to such objects a character of force and energy, which purely symmetrical compositions do not suggest.
1890. Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci., Aug., 448. The larva emerges … as a symmetrical animal, but the details of the process of ‘symmetrisation’—the strongly marked character of which justifies the use of an otherwise undesirable term—are still rather obscure.
