poeticize

English

Alternative forms

• poeticise

Etymology

poetic +‎ -ize

Verb

poeticize (third-person singular simple present poeticizes, present participle poeticizing, simple past and past participle poeticized)

1. (transitive) To make poetic, or express in poetry.
   • 1829 July, The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle‎^[1], volume 99, page 50:

     The ambition of Russia is most elaborately exposed in an essay highly poeticized.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 174:

     To the ancients in Mesopotamia as well as in Mexico this movement was poeticized as a journey through the underworld.

   • 2007, Bruce L. Moon, The Role of Metaphor in Art Therapy: Theory, Method, and Experience‎^[2]:

     For me, the process of poeticizing the DSM is a way to enhance my empathic understanding of clients.

   • 2009 January 14, Ben Brantley, Jason Zinoman, “In Festival, Biography, Beckett and Blues”, in New York Times:

     His poeticized version of a news flash about the advent of AIDS (the disease that killed his mother) electrifies, as it should, like unexpected lightning.

2. (intransitive) To write or speak in the manner of a poet.
   • 1846, Peers and parvenus‎^[3], volumes 1-3, page 166:

     They may poeticize when they come down upon the glory of the unclouded sun, or the extensive wonders of the developed landscape; but, my word for it, all was lost upon them, so long as their chief care was not to break their necks by a sudden descent!

   • 1870, Leigh Hunt, A Day by the Fire: And Other Papers, Hitherto Uncollected‎^[4]:

     Then, if I wish to poeticize upon it at home, there is Belinda, with her sylphs, drinking it in such state as nothing but poetry can supply […]

   • 1924, Bertolt Brecht, The Life of Edward II of England‎^[5]:

     One play is about a weak man who, under pressure, gives up his friend first and his crown later, and interests us only in his very human weakness and by virtue of the faint halo that is cast around it by all the grace and poeticizing.

Derived terms

• poeticization