epicureanize

English

Alternative forms

• epicureanise

Etymology

epicurean +‎ -ize

Verb

epicureanize (third-person singular simple present epicureanizes, present participle epicureanizing, simple past and past participle epicureanized)

1. To make epicurean; To cause to value and pursue refined pleasures.
   • 1848, Julius Charles Hare, Augustus William Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, page 47:

     Along with it came the rapid growth of wealth, and of the arts which minister to wealth, whether by feeding or by pampering it: and these naturally tend to enervate and epicureanize men's minds, to “ incarnate and imbrute" the soul, “till she quite loses The divine property of her first being," to lower the dignity of thought, and to relax the severe purity of feeling; so that people learn to account happiness the one legitimate object of all aim, and that too a happiness derived from nothing higher than the temperate harmless indulgence of our pleasurable appetites.

   • 1889, Poet Lore - Volume 1, page 386:

     A certain openness of mind, and a literary good taste nourished, — not epicureanized on good literature, nor specialized on one master's bounties, is more necessary than scholarship to make a good reviewer, though scholarship, if not case-hardened, is indeed good.

   • 2009, David Benatar, Life, Death, & Meaning:

     To countenance artificial methods is not to advocate forced manipulations of people's desires, of course, any more than to recommend hypnotism to a reluctant smoker is to kidnap and brainwash a smoker who is happy only with tobacco. The suggestion is just that if individuals decide that it really would be desirable to epicureanize their aspirations, they may as well use artificial means of doing so rather than limiting themselves to what they can achieve through sheer willpower.