To sanitize means to make something clean and free of germs that could cause illness. When you sanitize your hands with soap and water, you're washing away bacteria and viruses that might make you sick. Restaurants sanitize their kitchen counters and cutting boards to prevent harmful bacteria from spreading to food. Hospitals sanitize medical equipment between patients to stop infections from spreading.

Sanitizing goes beyond just making something look clean. You might wipe crumbs off a table to make it tidy, but sanitizing that table means killing the invisible germs living on its surface. People often sanitize things that many people touch, like doorknobs, light switches, or shared tablets at school.

The word can also mean removing content that might offend or upset people. When a movie is sanitized for television, scenes with violence or strong language might be cut out or changed. Some people criticize overly sanitized books or movies for removing important but uncomfortable parts of a story, making it feel artificial or incomplete. In this sense, to sanitize something means to make it seem cleaner or more acceptable than it really is, which can be misleading.