decontextualize
Americanverb (used with object)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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decontextualizesimple
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decontextualizessimple
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have decontextualizedperfect
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has decontextualizedperfect
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am decontextualizingprogressive
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are decontextualizingprogressive
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is decontextualizingprogressive
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have been decontextualizingperfect progressive
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has been decontextualizingperfect progressive
Past
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decontextualizedsimple
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had decontextualizedperfect
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was decontextualizingprogressive
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were decontextualizingprogressive
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had been decontextualizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of decontextualize
First recorded in 1975–80; de- + contextualize
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:
“They can also decontextualize dishes, leading to a warped understanding in the public opinion of what exactly a dish is.”
From Salon ● Feb. 24, 2024
The framing is yet another example of how anti-vaxxers repeatedly decontextualize information to fit an anti-vaccine agenda.
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2023
In order to address this broader problem, Brandt deliberately set out, in “Inherit the Dust,” to decontextualize his wildlife photographs.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 6, 2016
Second, online comparisons like this decontextualize the problem of harassment, as though a connection to what happens offline is trivial or inconsequential.
From Time ● Sep. 9, 2014
For stars such as Armstrong and Jones, the attraction of such projects must be to disrupt expected narratives, to decontextualize themselves.
From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2014
She knows that every documentary image is both a representation and a distortion, a captured reality that excludes and decontextualizes as much as it reveals.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2022
“Misinformation takes something that’s true and decontextualizes it,” she says.
From New York Times ● May 25, 2022
He added that “just looking to see whether a publication uses causal language decontextualizes the way that an author may have nuanced or interpreted their findings.”
From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2019
The common bust narrative decontextualizes its subject, with the bust seen as an isolated mistake as opposed to what it more often is—the product of widespread and deeply misbegotten consensus.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2013
Students should read entire books, not decontextualized passages.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 12, 2026
I described it in the book as a kind of Hollywood fantasy about the amorality of Washington, albeit in a crucially decontextualized way.
From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2024
“Is it a good thing that Robert Irwin’s work was saved but decontextualized, or is it a travesty?” she said.
From New York Times ● Apr. 3, 2023
Records often include decontextualized information, and it can be easy for people to spin that into whatever story they want to tell.
From The Verge ● Jun. 29, 2022
Social VR is dynamic, instantaneous, simultaneously decontextualized and embodied.
From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2021
I wish the show’s wall text and labels weren’t so overloaded with jargon, verbs like navigating, negotiating, interrogating, decentering, decontextualizing, disrupting and destabilizing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026
But decontextualizing it out of the internet and putting it onto the medium of television just made it feel absurd to everyone.
From The Verge ● Jun. 14, 2022
Pivi is decontextualizing and re-sculpting a symbol rather than a rote object.
From New York Times ● Apr. 14, 2022
And by decontextualizing suffering, it leaves us desensitized.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 25, 2021
“Beer Money” also seems like it might be a terminal point for Mooney and Beck Bennett’s long-term project of decontextualizing the theatrical conventions of late 1980s television.
From Slate ● May 10, 2020
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.
