vulgarize

American  

[vuhl-guh-rahyz] / ˈvʌl gəˌraɪz /

especially British, vulgarise

verb (used with object)

vulgarized, vulgarizing

1. to make vulgar or coarse; lower; debase.

   to vulgarize standards of behavior.

2. to make (a technical or abstruse work) easier to understand and more widely known; popularize.

3. to translate (a work) from a classical language into the vernacular.

---

vulgarize British  

/ ˈvʌlɡəˌraɪz /

verb

1. to make commonplace or vulgar; debase

2. to make (something little known or difficult to understand) widely known or popular among the public; popularize

---

Other Word Forms

• unvulgarize verb (used with object)
• vulgarization noun
• vulgarizer noun

Etymology

Origin of vulgarize

First recorded in 1595–1605; vulgar + -ize

Example Sentences

In “Children of Light,” his Hollywood novel, he wrote: “There are people at this table who could vulgarize pure light.”

From New York Times • Mar. 9, 2020

James Ellroy served as one of two grand masters for the awards, saying, "We are here to vulgarize literature."

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 30, 2015

To vulgarize the dead is bad enough, but Pickwick does something worse�it anesthetizes the living.

From Time Magazine Archive

Solzhenitsyn's world is one of almost private Russian concern and grief, which no Westerner may lightly enter or vulgarize in glib anti-Communist terms.

From Time Magazine Archive

Yet they will vulgarize the whole idea with their infernal notions of ‘what the public wants.’

From The Branding Iron by Burt, Katharine Newlin