depersonalize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make impersonal.
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to deprive of personality or individuality.
a mechanistic society that is depersonalizing its members.
verb
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to deprive (a person, organization, system, etc) of individual or personal qualities; render impersonal
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to cause (someone) to lose his sense of personal identity
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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depersonalizesimple
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depersonalizessimple
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have depersonalizedperfect
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has depersonalizedperfect
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am depersonalizingprogressive
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are depersonalizingprogressive
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is depersonalizingprogressive
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have been depersonalizingperfect progressive
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has been depersonalizingperfect progressive
Past
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depersonalizedsimple
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had depersonalizedperfect
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was depersonalizingprogressive
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were depersonalizingprogressive
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had been depersonalizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of depersonalize
First recorded in 1865–70; de- + personalize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The French revolutionaries feared industrialization would depersonalize society by marginalizing skilled artisans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
But history also shows us what happens when we dehumanize, depersonalize.
From Salon ● May 26, 2024
“It’s easy to depersonalize it and think these women are bad people,” Cadwallader said.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 4, 2022
All these factors are combining to depersonalize medicine and suck the soul out of many providers.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 9, 2021
Another widespread misconception is that numbers depersonalize or somehow diminish individuality.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
This depersonalizes the tip and can discourage generous tipping.
From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2023
The copying program depersonalizes things such as photos, kids’ drawings, handwritten notes and birthday cards - connections to home and family important to those on the inside.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 5, 2018
She loves to personify the inhuman at the same time as she depersonalizes the human, creating a swirl of slippery images out of our already ridiculous conceptions.
From Slate ● Jun. 2, 2014
Language stabilizes, induces uniformity, depersonalizes; television keeps up with change, allows and invites diversity, makes possible personalized interaction among those connected through a TV chain of cameras and receivers.
From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai
His criticisms of Democrats tend to include the depersonalized terms “policy choices” and “policy decisions.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
Dotting the history of fast-food are numerous examples of both corporate leaders and franchise owners steering their restaurants towards providing ostensibly more streamlined, though increasingly depersonalized, experiences.
From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2023
Similarly unavoidable is the depersonalized quality of the blank form of brute steel: Smith’s cube reveals no marks of the artist’s hand.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2021
The messages on social media blaming her family for its own tragedy are typical of depersonalized Internet viciousness.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 2, 2021
Language,—I ask permission to recur once more to etymology,—language seems to me to have clearly expressed the moral condition of the laborer, after he has been, if I may so speak, depersonalized by industry.
From System of Economical Contradictions; or, the Philosophy of Misery by Proudhon, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph)
By depersonalizing death and making it into a rote spectacle, Perkins loses any heart that could give his film the resonance it so desperately needs.
From Salon ● Feb. 21, 2025
Staging can be as simple as decluttering and depersonalizing a house while you’re still living there.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 24, 2023
In a way, Indy has been swallowed up by not only the very action-comedy movie formula he helped normalize but also by the dispiriting, depersonalizing trends in 21st-century studio filmmaking.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2023
“Burnout has that quality but is also being very cynical and discouraged and depersonalizing things and really losing your sense of accomplishment, which is a much more dark place to be.”
From Scientific American ● Mar. 7, 2023
So long as Mary was a child, her claim upon her mother had to some extent balanced the claims of what many might have thought a devastating and depersonalizing charity.
From The Case of Richard Meynell by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
