vulgarize

English

Alternative forms

• vulgarise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Etymology

Etymology tree

English vulgar

Proto-Indo-European *-id-

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti

Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō

Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor.

Late Latin -izōder.

Middle French -iserbor.

Middle English -isen

English -ize

English vulgarize

From vulgar + -ize.

Pronunciation

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Verb

vulgarize (third-person singular simple present vulgarizes, present participle vulgarizing, simple past and past participle vulgarized)

1. To make vulgar.
   1. To make commonplace, crass, lewd.
      • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

        With much labor we got our things up the steps, and then, looking back, took one last long survey of that strange land, soon I fear to be vulgarized, the prey of hunter and prospector, but to each of us a dreamland of glamour and romance, a land where we had dared much, suffered much, and learned much - our land, as we shall ever fondly call it.

      • 1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out‎^[1]:

        "Yes," said Mr. Flushing. "And in my opinion," he continued, "the absence of population to which Hirst objects is precisely the significant touch. You must admit, Hirst, that a little Italian town even would vulgarise the whole scene, would detract from the vastness — the sense of elemental grandeur."

      • 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 167:

        Words only vulgarize love and blunt its edge.

   2. To convert (religious rites) so as to use the vulgate (language of the commoners).

Synonyms

• debase
• dumb down

Antonyms

• ennoble

Derived terms

• devulgarize
• unvulgarize
• vulgarizer

Translations

To make something vulgar

• Finnish: vulgaaristaa
• French: vulgariser (fr)
• Georgian: გავულგარულება (gavulgaruleba), გაუხამსება (gauxamseba)
• Greek: εκχυδαΐζω (el) (ekchydaḯzo)
• Interlingua: vulgarisar
• Italian: volgarizzare (it)
• Spanish: vulgarizar (es)

Portuguese

Verb

vulgarize

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