barbarize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
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to become barbarous; lapse into barbarism.
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to use barbarisms in speaking or writing.
verb
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to make or become barbarous
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to use barbarisms in (language)
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of barbarize
1635–45; partly < Greek barbarízein, equivalent to bárbar ( os ) barbarian + -izein -ize; partly barbar(ous) + -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:
To his French and Arab friends, who look upon Americans as Roman-style imperialists come to organize and barbarize their cultivated Greek-style world, Childress is "the nice American," a surprisingly sensitive soul.
From Time Magazine Archive
Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.
From Many Thoughts of Many Minds A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age by Klopsch, Louis
The nobles were directed to converse in English, French, Italian, or their native tongue; Pombal declaring, that the custom of speaking Latin was only "to teach them to barbarize."
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844 by Various
Manners are what vex or soothe, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us by a constant, steady, uniform, invincible operation like that of the air we breathe.
From Pushing to the Front by Marden, Orison Swett
The legions are barbarized and they barbarize the Emperor.
From Medieval People by Power, Eileen Edna
We shall be barbarized on both sides of the water, if we do not see one another now and then.
From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 06 (of 12) by Burke, Edmund
Its use had to be learnt from French masters of deportment; the old magniloquent Italo-Spanish rapier jargon was forgotten; French terms, barbarized into carte, tierce, sagoon, flanquonade, and so forth, were alone understood.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 2 "Fairbanks, Erastus" to "Fens" by Various
Not knowing what to do with the flower border, we barbarized instead of cultivating it.
From Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 by Elliott, Maud Howe
If the mind and heart of a nation become barbarized, no classic culture can keep its language from corruption.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860 by Various
The absence of association forbids the existence of schools or workshops, books or instruction, and men become barbarized, when, under a different system, they might and would become civilized.
From The slave trade, domestic and foreign Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished by Carey, H. C. (Henry Charles)
With these secret schools of physiological theology, the mythical poets were doubtless in connexion, and it was these schools which prevented polytheism from producing all its natural barbarizing effects.
From Literary Remains, Volume 2 by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
He objected to it as anti-social; he objected to it as making commerce the means of barbarizing instead of enlightening nations.
From The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style by Webster, Daniel
The Roman empire was barbarizing rapidly from the time of Trajan.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah
However, on the one hand, things are not always as they seem; commerce has its ennobling effects, direct or indirect; war its barbarizing degradations.
From Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2 by De Quincey, Thomas
The ill habit … of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom, with their untutored Anglicisms.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah
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.
