apostrophize

especially British, a·pos·tro·phise

[uh-pos-truh-fahyz]

verb (used with object)

apostrophized, apostrophizing 

1. to address by apostrophe.

verb (used without object)

apostrophized, apostrophizing 

1. to utter an apostrophe.

apostrophize

/ əˈpɒstrəˌfaɪz /

verb

1. (tr) rhetoric to address an apostrophe to

Other Word Forms

• unapostrophized adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of apostrophize¹

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

Example Sentences

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?

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Both thereby apostrophize America’s original sin and permanent crisis: the otherizing of the not white, regardless of gradations.

Read more on The New Yorker

She revealed this with a sense of embarrassment at her own wistfulness — her dreamy nostalgia evoking Beckett’s Winnie, who leans back in her mound and apostrophizes the “old style.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

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

Read more on New York Times

Rather than apostrophizing and examining the sexist and homophobic attitudes of the macho private eye from its classic incarnations, it serves them up straight with a twist of heroism.

Read more on The New Yorker

Related Words

• accost 
• buttonhole