bastardize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to lower in condition or worth; debase.
hybrid works that neither preserve nor bastardize existing art forms.
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to declare or prove (someone) to be a bastard.
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Australian. to harass or humiliate as part of initiation into a college or regiment.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to debase; corrupt
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archaic to declare illegitimate
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bastardize
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:
“People were up in arms about how you could bastardize the written word, and do it on this screen, and not have the tactile feeling of the page and the leather-bound book,” he recalled.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2022
From small hacks to amp up existing classics to unique combinations of flavors, there is — to bastardize the iconic "Seinfeld" line — a soup for you.
From Salon ● Jan. 28, 2022
“If we bastardize Congress, we’re also bastardizing our country,” Cayetano said in his video message.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 13, 2020
“I have not seen a foreign player bastardize the system. Most are serious about school.”
From Washington Post ● May 30, 2017
The law is so indulgent as not to bastardize the child, if born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah
I was just picturing them both hating how I bastardized their song.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
But this idea has been bastardized to the point of thinking that life knows that we humans are putzes and will clean up our mess.
From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2022
That was always going to be a bastardized version of a baseball season, without fans in the seats and with manufactured crowd noise piped pumped into the stadium and broadcast feeds.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 6, 2022
“Big Ag has co-opted and bastardized every one of our messages,” he said.
From New York Times ● Sep. 7, 2021
Already, he had heard the locals refer to it as the Newsless Courier, and he had immediately adapted the bastardized version as his own.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
No one finished out 2025 talking about Disney bastardizing everyone’s favorite precocious blue alien, but “Materialists” was still driving conversations and reactions well through the end of the year.
From Salon ● Jan. 6, 2026
The show’s actors say they, too, have been struck by Lester’s sure hand in getting big laughs and by how she brings a modern sensibility to the role without bastardizing it.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2022
“It’s a matter of not bastardizing the original business statement of the original brand,” he says, of his increased physical presence on the channel.
From Slate ● Mar. 29, 2021
“If we bastardize Congress, we’re also bastardizing our country,” Cayetano said in his video message.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 13, 2020
The murder therefore was to be fixed on Richard the Third, who was to be supposed to have usurped the throne, by murdering, and not, as was really the case, by bastardizing his nephews.
From Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third by Walpole, Horace
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.
