bowdlerize
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
Contents |
[edit] English
[edit] Alternative spellings
[edit] Etymology
From Thomas Bowdler who in 1818 published a censored version of Shakespeare, expurgating "those words and expressions... which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family."
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Verb
|
Infinitive |
Third person singular |
Simple past |
Past participle |
Present participle |
to bowdlerize (third-person singular simple present bowdlerizes, present participle bowdlerizing, simple past and past participle bowdlerized)
- To remove those parts of a text considered offensive, vulgar, or otherwise unseemly.
- The bowdlerized version of the novel, while free of vulgarity, was also free of flavor.
- 1961, J. A. Philip, "Mimesis in the Sophistês of Plato," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 92, p. 455,
- His critics take alarm only when it becomes apparent that he would bowdlerize Homer and exclude from his state the great tragedians.
