protagonize

protagonize (third-person singular simple present protagonizes, present participle protagonizing, simple past and past participle protagonized)

1. (transitive) To set up as the protagonist, or most significant character or entity.
   • 2018, Jennifer Markides, Laura Forsythe, Looking Back and Living Forward: Indigenous Research Rising Up, page 41:

     Our project should be to protagonize ourselves, and yet, that project presents certain problems.

   • 2020, Randal Joy Thompson, Proleptic Leadership on the Commons, page 75:

     Self-protagonizing does not mean putting self first, nor maximizing self-gain. Rather, it expresses a certain sense of freedom […]

2. (transitive) To be the protagonist, or most significant character or entity (of a literary work, etc.).
   • 2019 October 14, María Soledad Paz-Mackay, Omar Rodriguez, Politics of Children in Latin American Cinema‎, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 177:

     For the sake of convenience, the name “Ernesto [Guevara]” will refer to the young medical student who protagonizes The Motorcycle Diaries (henceforth, Motorcycle Diaries).

protagonize

1. inflection of protagonizar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative