plebification

English

Etymology

From Latin plebs (“the common people”) + -ficare (“to make”, in comparative). See -fy.

Noun

plebification (usually uncountable, plural plebifications)

1. Making plebeian; vulgarizing.
   • 1809, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Friend

     You begin with the attempt to popularize learning […] but you will end in the plebification of knowledge.

Related terms

• plebify

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for plebification in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)