barbarize

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɑː(ɹ)bəɹaɪz/

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Verb

barbarize (third-person singular simple present barbarizes, present participle barbarizing, simple past and past participle barbarized)

1. (transitive) To cause to become savage or uncultured.
2. (intransitive) To become savage or uncultured.
   • 1839, Thomas De Quincey, “Philosophy of Roman History”, in Blackwood's Magazine:

     The Roman empire was barbarizing rapidly from the time of Trajan.

3. (intransitive) To adopt a foreign or barbarous mode of speech.
   • , [John Milton], Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib, Thomas Underhill and/or Thomas Johnson], →OCLC:

     The ill habit […] of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom, with their untutored Anglicisms.

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