denaturalize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to deprive of proper or true nature; make unnatural.
-
to deprive of the rights and privileges of citizenship or of naturalization.
verb
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to deprive of nationality
-
to make unnatural
Other Word Forms
- denaturalization noun
Etymology
Origin of denaturalize
First recorded in 1790–1800; de- + naturalize
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.
Trump will have to start deporting legal immigrants and, quite likely, "denaturalizing" citizens to get anywhere close to that goal.
From Salon
As attorney general, Mr. Civiletti successfully argued before the Supreme Court for the government’s right to denaturalize Nazi war criminals.
From New York Times
Fewer than 150 people had been denaturalized in American courts in the previous 50 years, almost all of them Nazis, war criminals or people who were convicted of federal crimes tied to large-scale immigration fraud.
From New York Times
The anarchist Emma Goldman was denaturalized in 1909, and shipped to Revolutionary Russia a decade later.
From New York Times
His denaturalization task force, for instance, was about “denaturalizing people who should not have been naturalized in the first place,” he said.
From The New Yorker
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.
