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Showing results for apostrophize. Search instead for apostrophized.
Synonyms

apostrophize

American  
[uh-pos-truh-fahyz] / əˈpɒs trəˌfaɪz /
especially British, apostrophise

verb (used with object)

apostrophized, apostrophizing
  1. to address by apostrophe.


verb (used without object)

apostrophized, apostrophizing
  1. to utter an apostrophe.

apostrophize British  
/ əˈpɒstrəˌfaɪz /

verb

  1. (tr) rhetoric to address an apostrophe to

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms


Etymology

Origin of apostrophize

First recorded in 1605–15; apostrophe 2 + -ize


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:

Or that the prolix Gaev — a man as likely to apostrophize a piece of furniture as the stars above — keeps promising he’ll be quiet.

From New York Times ● Dec. 5, 2011

Thus did Adolf Hitler apostrophize his beloved season, spring.

From Time Magazine Archive

No bright and overwhelming genius appeared in 1947 to light the way and apostrophize the age.

From Time Magazine Archive

So did one medieval minstrel apostrophize his hero, suggesting that a good hunting dog might be a duke's best friend.

From Time Magazine Archive

So constantly did he apostrophize the barber to hurry, wagging a restless jaw, that blood oozed from several nicks when the beard had been removed.

From Joan of Arc of the North Woods by Holman Day

Ali Tepelena, once apostrophized by Byron, was real; Albania certainly exists.

From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2018

Sealing the message of political friendship was a video of the center’s namesake, apostrophized as “the greatest Irish American,” speaking during his visit to Ireland in 1963.

From Washington Post ● May 18, 2016

Intriguingly, many of the cultural figures whom Harrison has apostrophized in her art are men—Amerigo Vespucci, Charles Darwin, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, as well as DiCaprio, Cheney, and, in his “Scarface” role, Al Pacino.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 15, 2014

When Prince von Starhemberg was able to speak at last he apostrophized the dead Chancellor with the intimate pronoun.

From Time Magazine Archive

Donald, me boy," he apostrophized, "you have been rejected.

From The Road to Understanding by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

So why do we still read him, and why do so many people still flock to his plays, despite their archaisms lichened with footnotes and, to citizens of our ironic century, his easily parodied apostrophizing?

From Washington Post ● Sep. 8, 2021

Now, when she sat down to write in her notebook, she found herself apostrophizing anything that crossed her mind, addressing concepts and objects directly, trying to name their component parts.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 22, 2016

On Wednesday, Santa Barbara County district attorney Thomas Sneddon Jr. announced with unsuppressed glee that he had issued a warrant for Jackson's arrest, apostrophizing, "Get over here and get checked in."

From Time Magazine Archive

By way of apostrophizing his movement, Smith, 68, has just erected a $250,000 snow-white statue of Jesus Christ atop 1,500-ft.

From Time Magazine Archive

“A thing like this must be nipped in the bud,” pronounced Phillis, apostrophizing her laughing sisters.

From Not Like Other Girls by Rosa Nouchette Carey

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