muscularize

present singular third person muscularizes · participle present muscularizing · participle past muscularized · past muscularized · alternative muscularise

1. To increase the size of the muscles.

   1982, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure I need to lift weights & muscularize my chest—it's still so sunken in.

   1 more example

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

   1993, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder,, page 159

2. transitiveTo make (something) more masculine, virile, or militaristic.

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

   2002, L. Dean Allen, Rise Up, O Men of God: the Men and Religion Forward Movement and Promise Keepers, page 73