vulgarize

English

Alternative forms

• vulgarise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Etymology

vulgar +‎ -ize

Verb

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

1. To make commonplace, lewd, or vulgar.
   • 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:

     "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.

Synonyms

• debase
• dumb down

Antonyms

• ennoble

Translations

Portuguese

Verb

vulgarize

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