infantilize

English

Alternative forms

• infantilise

Etymology

Etymology tree

English infantile

Proto-Indo-European *-id-

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti

Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō

Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor.

Late Latin -izōder.

Middle French -iserbor.

Middle English -isen

English -ize

English infantilize

From infantile + -ize (“make into”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈfæn.tɪ.laɪz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

infantilize (third-person singular simple present infantilizes, present participle infantilizing, simple past and past participle infantilized)

1. (transitive) To reduce (an adult) to the state or status of an infant.
   • 1984 August 18, Scott Tucker, “The Politics of Perversion”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 6, page 8:

     For too long, many of us have sought unity by binding ourselves together with the umbilical cords of dogma. They have done less and less to nurture us in recent years, and more and more to infantilize us.

   • 2026 June 4, Andalusia K. Soloff, “Politics and puppets: The enduring appeal of ‘31 Minutos’”, in The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Massachusetts: Christian Science Publishing Society, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     Once [Chile] began the transition to democracy in the 1990s, two journalists, Álvaro Díaz González and Pedro Peirano, set out to design a children’s show that they themselves would want to watch – steeped in humor and political criticism, and where children wouldn’t be infantilized.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

2. (transitive) To treat (an adult) like a child.

Antonyms

• adultify

Derived terms

• infantilization
• infantilizer

Translations

to reduce to the state of an infant

• Catalan: infantilitzar (ca)
• Dutch: infantiliseren (nl)
• Finnish: infantilisoida
• French: infantiliser (fr)
• German: infantilisieren (de)
• Italian: infantilizzare
• Portuguese: infantilizar (pt)
• Spanish: infantilizar (es)

to treat like a child

• Catalan: infantilitzar (ca)
• Dutch: infantiliseren (nl)
• Esperanto: infanigi
• Finnish: kohdella kuin lasta
• French: infantiliser (fr)
• German: infantilisieren (de)
• Italian: infantilizzare
• Polish: infantylizować impf, zinfantylizować pf
• Portuguese: infantilizar (pt)
• Spanish: infantilizar (es)
• Swedish: förbarnsliga

See also

• babygirlification

References

• “infantilize”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Galician

Verb

infantilize

1. (reintegrationist norm) inflection of infantilizar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Portuguese

Verb

infantilize

1. inflection of infantilizar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative