1700–10; < Medieval Latin Anglic ( us ) English + -ize
To anglicize something is to change it so that it appears to be more English. Immigrants to the United States sometimes anglicize their names so they're more familiar to English-speaking Americans. If you anglicize your house, you might decorate it in the style of a British tea room, and if you anglicize your Polish name, you make it sound less Polish and more English. Throughout history, places that were colonized by England were forced to anglicize many of their place names — one example is Kolkata, India, which was anglicized to "Calcutta" and changed back in 2001. Anglicize comes from the Latin root Angli, or "the English."
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
One director told her to Anglicize her name so that it would be easier to remember, but the “Star Wars” and Marvel star rejected his suggestion.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2023
Emily Woo Zeller, a Chinese American narrator, has sometimes clashed with directors and QC over whether to Anglicize the pronunciation of words taken from other languages, such as tofu or kung fu.
From Slate ● Jun. 21, 2021
Robin Philpot, a prominent Quebec writer, argued that Montreal should guard against a long-standing drive by the British conquerors of Quebec and their descendants to Anglicize the names of streets and bridges in the city.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 10, 2020
The Taubs first persuaded the vineyard that produced the wine to Anglicize its name.
From New York Times ● Nov. 23, 2012
For these reasons, I suppose, many recent ornithologists Anglicize the systematic name, and call it the Gallinule, which means 'little fowl', and is suggestive of the half-domestic habits of the bird, under certain circumstances.
From British Birds in their Haunts by Johns, Rev. C. A.
It's common for Italian Americans like DeSantis to anglicize their names, swapping, in the governor's case, the Italian pronunciation of "day" with "deh," Professor William Connell, Seton Hall Unveristy's chair of Italian Studies, said.
From Salon ● Jun. 1, 2023
“Now, to make it even more fun, if you anglicize the Spanish phonetic spelling, that’s when you finally get to ‘Hueneme.’”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2022
Not too long ago, it was taken for granted that some immigrants to the United States should anglicize their names.
From Slate ● Mar. 24, 2022
Lots of people with names difficult to spell and pronounce anglicize them, so maybe that's a possibility here, since you mention other family members have done something similar.
From Slate ● Aug. 13, 2012
As Aurora--it sounds so much pleasanter to anglicize her name--as Aurora gained a corner where two of these gunwales met, she stopped and looked back to make sure that Clotilde was not watching her.
From The Grandissimes by Cable, George Washington
In 1812, a year of dramatic battles in North America, Europe and Russia, some Russians founded a Sonoma County outpost called Fort Ross, probably an Anglicized mangling of the word “Russ,” for Russia.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2025
Those of you who enjoy a bit of English literature might recognize Tokaji under its Anglicized name, tokay, which aristocrats like to swizzle in period romances and gaslit murder mysteries.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 23, 2023
This practice goes back even further: After British colonial forces left India in the late 1940s, right-wing Hindu nationalist leaders replaced many Anglicized place names with Hindu ones.
From Salon ● Oct. 15, 2022
And in modern times, it’s more likely that a word will retain its original spelling and pronunciation, whereas in the last century, there was a tendency for those words to be Anglicized.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 7, 2022
The original plural was octopodes, Anglicized over the years to octopuses.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
And, unlike earlier generations, Indian American candidates are running without Anglicizing their names.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2024
To the irritation of his publishers, he sometimes resorts to footnotes to explain unfamiliar terms or episodes from Chinese history, rather than omitting or Anglicizing them.
From New York Times ● Dec. 3, 2019
On the one hand, it has made the Anglicizing of international communications ever more unstoppable.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 24, 2016
Anglicizing the French name to Dolphin, Stallworth broke with his slave past and set the stage, more than 100 years later, for the Dolphin name to appear in lights in Hollywood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2015
From the reign of Elizabeth onwards, English Protestant schools were founded by the government in a sporadic and intermittent fashion in pursuance Historic retrospect. of its Anglicizing policy.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 10 "Echinoderma" to "Edward" by Various
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.
