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• Anglicize
  Anglicize

  verb (used with or without object)

  to make or become English in form or character.
• anglicize
  anglicize

  verb

  (sometimes capital) to make or become English in outlook, attitude, form, etc

Anglicize

American  

[ang-gluh-sahyz] / ˈæŋ gləˌsaɪz /

especially British, Anglicise

verb (used with or without object)

Anglicized, Anglicizing

1. (sometimes lowercase) to make or become English in form or character.

   to Anglicize the pronunciation of a Russian name.

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anglicize British  

/ ˈæŋɡlɪˌfaɪ, ˈæŋɡlɪˌsaɪz /

verb

1. (sometimes capital) to make or become English in outlook, attitude, form, etc

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Other Word Forms

• Anglicization
  noun
• anglicization
  noun
• de-Anglicize
  verb (used with object)
• half-Anglicized
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of Anglicize

1700–10; < Medieval Latin Anglic ( us ) English + -ize

Explanation

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Anglicize anglicize Anglicized Anglicizing

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 longstanding drive by the British conquerors of Quebec and their descendants to Anglicize the names of streets and bridges in the city.

From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2020

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

It is much better to Anglicize the word into the English "Paraclete."

From The Spirit and the Word A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational Interpretation of the Word of Truth by Zachary Taylor Sweeney

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

Jimmy was commissioned to anglicize a proper proposal and André spent hours in repeating the verbiage as taught.

From David Lannarck, Midget An Adventure Story by George S. Harney

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

For several years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly opposed the use of the Anglicized spelling for his country and has pushed for the rest of the world to use its Turkish-language name.

From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 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

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

Des and Devi also discuss Anglicizing Indian names.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2022

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

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