attitudinize

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English[edit]

WOTD – 26 March 2024

Etymology[edit]

From Italian attitudine (“attitude, pose, posture”) + English -ize (suffix forming verbs meaning ‘to do [something denoted by the word to which it is attached]’).[1] Attitudine is borrowed from Late Latin aptitūdinem, the accusative singular of aptitūdō (“fitness, aptitude”), from Latin aptus (“apt, proper; adapted, suitable”) (from apō (“to attach, connect; to fasten”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“to attach, join; to fasten; to fit”)) + -tūdō (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a condition or state).

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

attitudinize (third-person singular simple present attitudinizes, present participle attitudinizing, simple past and past participle attitudinized) (American spelling, Oxford British English)

  1. (transitive)
    1. To cause (someone or something) to assume an attitude or pose; to pose, to posture.
      • 1951, Hortense Calisher, “In Greenwich there are Many Gravelled Walks”, in In the Absence of Angels: Stories, Boston, Mass.; Toronto, Ont.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 14:
        In Greenwich, there were many gravelled walks, unshrubbed except for the nurses who dotted them, silent and attitudinized as trees.
    2. To give the appearance of, or make a show of, (something) by assuming an affected or exaggerated attitude.
      • 1924, Gilbert Frankau, chapter 5, in Gerald Cranston’s Lady, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.; London: The Century Co., →OCLC, section 1, page 54:
        While she, one hand on his arm, had been attitudinizing her dutiful gratitude, he—as she suddenly realized—had been deciding to rid her of Fordham [her estate manager]. No sentimentalizing, no attitudinizing there!
  2. (intransitive)
    1. To assume an attitude or pose, especially one which is affected, exaggerated, or unnatural; to posture, to posturize; also, to excessively practise adopting attitudes or poses.
    2. (figurative) To create art, speak, or write in a manner which assumes affected, exaggerated, or unnatural attitudes.
      • 1871 December, Robert Browning, Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society, London: Smith, Elder and Co., →OCLC, page 124:
        [W]hoso rhymes a sonnet pays a tax, / Who paints a landscape dips brush at his cost, / Who scores a septett true for strings and wind / Mulcted must be—else how should I impose / Properly, attitudinize aright, / Did such conflicting claims as these divert / Hohenstiel-Schwangau from observing me?
      • 1879, James Anthony Froude, chapter XIV, in Cæsar: A Sketch, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 194:
        In every line that he wrote Cicero was attitudinising for posterity, or reflecting on the effect of his conduct upon his interests or his reputation.
      • 1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 14, in The Long Goodbye, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], published 1954, →OCLC, page 89:
        There was a short typewritten paragraph on it, no more. It read, "I do not care to be in love with myself and there is no longer anyone else for me to be in love with. Signed: Roger (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Wade. P.S. This is why I never finished The Last Tycoon." / "That mean anything to you, Mrs. Wade?" / "Just attitudinizing. He has always been a great admirer of Scott Fitzgerald. […]"

Alternative forms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

to cause (someone or something) to assume an attitude or pose — see pose,‎ posture

References[edit]

  1. ^ “attitudinize, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “attitudinize, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
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