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aestheticize

American  
[es-thet-i-sahyz] / ɛsˈθɛt ɪˌsaɪz /
especially British, aestheticise

verb (used with object)

aestheticized, aestheticizing
  1. to depict as being pleasing or artistically beautiful; represent in an idealized or refined manner.


Etymology

Origin of aestheticize

First recorded in 1895–1900; aesthetic ( def. ) + -ize ( def. )


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:

Part of this, I think, can be attributed to social media and its relentless invitation to aestheticize even the most mundane corners of domestic life, kitchen cabinets included.

From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026

Since purchasing the site in 1977, he has constructed a labyrinth of chambers and tunnels that aestheticize the experience of sky-watching.

From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2022

Even on the bigger, splashier international canvas of “The White Tiger,” there’s a becoming modesty to Bahrani’s filmmaking and a palpable reluctance to sensationalize or aestheticize his protagonist’s poverty.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2021

Sanders can aestheticize his practiced cantankerousness for laughs and sympathy without anyone asking if its a put-on.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 7, 2020

And so, like staycations and minimalism, vanlife is an attempt to aestheticize and romanticize the precariousness of contemporary life.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 17, 2017

In one sense, she’s dealing with a rights issue too painful to be aggressively aestheticized, but she’s also exploring a blood-soaked injustice that can’t be treated conventionally.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2026

Utterly and unapologetically aestheticized, it reveled in its surfaces, while Modernism had everything from the political to the spiritual on its mind.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025

For years, the egg has ruled the breakfast table like a sun god—worshipped, aestheticized, endlessly fiddled with by men in starched aprons and women with ring lights.

From Salon ● Nov. 13, 2025

Yeoh helped to animate Lee’s vision of a graceful, aestheticized, classical kung fu, but the production was a much greater challenge for her than it may appear onscreen.

From New York Times ● Mar. 15, 2022

Its real legacy, though — its pathos and odd magic — is in how it smoothed the mess of the moment into radio-ready coherence; how it aestheticized the pomp of politics into song.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 20, 2020

But this is no navel-gazing exercise in aestheticizing detritus or finding beauty in ugly places.

From New York Times ● Jun. 30, 2023

Still, she remains clear-eyed about the so-called dark side of art because there is always the danger of aestheticizing suffering.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 14, 2016

Taboos are misread into Jacques Rivette’s essay “On Abjection”; his warning against aestheticizing matters of life and death is distorted into worry about pictorializing almost anything.

From The New Yorker ● Feb. 2, 2016

Rappmund isn’t merely aestheticizing sludge and ruin, putting lipstick on a pig.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2015

Are you talking about the risk of aestheticizing?

From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2012

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