barbarize

[ bahr-buh-rahyz ]

verb (used with object)

, bar·ba·rized, bar·ba·riz·ing.

1. to make barbarous; brutalize; corrupt:

   foreign influences barbarizing the Latin language.

verb (used without object)

, bar·ba·rized, bar·ba·riz·ing.

1. to become barbarous; lapse into barbarism.
2. to use barbarisms in speaking or writing.

barbarize

/ ˈbɑːbəˌraɪz /

verb

1. to make or become barbarous
2. to use barbarisms in (language)

Derived Forms

• ˌbarbariˈzation, noun

Other Words From

• barba·ri·zation noun
• de·barba·rize verb (used with object) debarbarized debarbarizing
• un·barba·rize verb (used with object) unbarbarized unbarbarizing

Word History and Origins

Origin of barbarize¹

1635–45; partly < Greek barbarízein, equivalent to bárbar ( os ) barbarian + -izein -ize; partly barbar(ous) + -ize

Example Sentences

“Manners are of more importance than laws. . . . The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us. . . . They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.”

From Washington Post

“The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us …. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.”

From New York Times

The group is the latest evidence of a near-universal human capacity to barbarize those seen as “others,” as nonbelievers, and treat them as a different form of life.

From Washington Post

There were: first, the return to the ancient Chinese morality; second, the return to the ancient Chinese learning; and third, the adoption of Western science.73 Sun Yat-sen's never-shaken belief in the applicability of the ancient Chinese ethical system, and in the wisdom of old China in social organization, is such that of itself it prevents his being regarded as a mere imitator of the West, a barbarized Chinese returning to barbarize his countrymen.

From Project Gutenberg

God, acting always through Nature, always by universal and self-evident laws, would not permit a thousand sects of ignorant, profane, impious, blaspheming Priests, to mislead, impoverish, and barbarize the people.

From Project Gutenberg