bowdlerize
[bohd-luh-rahyz, boud-]
- to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.
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Also especially British, bowd·ler·ise.
Origin of bowdlerize
1830–40; after Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), English editor of an expurgated edition of Shakespeare
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
bowdlerize
bowdlerise
- (tr) to remove passages or words regarded as indecent from (a play, novel, etc); expurgate
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Word Origin
C19: after Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), English editor who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for bowdlerizing
bowdlerize
v.
1836, from Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), English editor who in 1818 published a notorious expurgated Shakespeare, in which, according to his frontispiece, "nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." Related: Bowdlerized; bowdlerizing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
bowdlerizing
[(bohd-luh-reye-zing, bowd-luh-reye-zing)]
Amending a book by removing passages and words deemed obscene or objectionable (see obscenity). The name comes from Thomas Bowdler's 1818 edition of the plays of William Shakespeare, which was amended so that it could “be read aloud in a family.”
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.