COLOURIZE

transitive verb Written colorize in the US (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Science and Technology) To add colour to (a black-and-white film) by a computerized process called Colorizer (a trade mark). Also as an adjective colourized; noun colourization. Etymology: The verb has existed in the sense 'to colour' since the seventeenth century, but was rarely used until the invention of the Colorizer. This use of the verb is likely to be a back-formation from Colorizer rather than a straightforward sense development. History and Usage: The Colorizer program has been used in Canada since the early eighties; the name was registered as a trade mark in the mid eighties. Also during the mid eighties, the practice of colourizing classic black-and-white films (especially for release as home videos) caused considerable controversy, with one side claiming that a company which had bought the rights to a particular film should be allowed to do as it wished with it, and the other maintaining that classic films were works of art not to be tampered with in any way. 'Colorizing' great movies such as Casablanca...is like spray-painting the Venus de Milo. Time 5 Nov. 1984, p. 10 Rather than legislate directly against the business interests that stood to profit from colorization, Congress approved provisions under which films could be given landmark status and protected...When broadcast recently on TBS, colorized pictures have been labeled as such. Philadelphia Inquirer 20 Sept. 1989, section A, p. 4