I also made an edit to the Wikipedia page to add molecules.

It finally makes sense, thanks so much! By the way, I was just watching a Khan Academy video, and although Sal's no expert in the field, he makes the same remark about "cationization energy" at ~3:00 so this seems to be a common confusion: youtu.be/5CBs36jtZxY?t=3m

@MaxW Maybe what you were implying with your comment is that any time cationization occurs, anionization also occurs; however, is it possible for an electron to be removed from an atom without it being added to another atom and become a free electron? Or maybe what you were implying is that the energy required to add or remove an electron is the same?

The reason I ask the question is that I've found the concept confusing because "ionization" alone is ambiguous. I think cationization would be valuable information and immediately imply the direction of movement. The implication from the above comments is that my intuition is correct, so I appreciate the responses. Thanks!

@MaxW It seems to me anionization energy would be the opposite - the amount of energy required to add a valence electron, right?