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essentialize

American  
[uh-sen-shuh-lahyz] / əˈsɛn ʃəˌlaɪz /
especially British, essentialise

verb (used with object)

essentialized, essentializing
  1. to extract the essence from; express the essence of.


Etymology

Origin of essentialize

First recorded in 1660–70; essential + -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:

Yet most of the narratives upon which we have settled continue to essentialize race and gender almost to the exclusion of everything else.

From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2022

Just as “Italian food” or “Italian culture” is too monolithic a descriptor for something so complex and diverse, it is impossible to essentialize a place even as small as Golfo Paradiso.

From New York Times ● Aug. 13, 2019

“We do not have strict diagnostic criteria, an essentialized definition, or a firm grasp of what causes it.”

From Washington Times ● Sep. 26, 2023

The Muslim American experience is essential to her work but never essentialized; Elhillo’s poems are too multifarious for that.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2022

“You were moving away from these ideas of essentialized womanhood that held feminism back,” Cox said.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 16, 2021

He essentialized the sneaker as casual wear and luxury item.

From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2020

I mean the subsistence of a thing by itself, and essentialized in itself; and such are essence and life, intellect, soul, and body.

From Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato by Thomas Taylor

It has this essentializing force that really centers you on yourself, and in some ways, detaches you from other people.

From Salon ● May 4, 2022

To change things for the better, we need to do more than consider essentializing notions of "what we are," and consider instead how we got to be this way and also what we might become.

From New York Times ● Nov. 25, 2017

But as with any general history, it risks essentializing China and making its history seem more uniform than the actual record justifies.

From Nature ● Aug. 2, 2016

"But Scott and Mike and Jake found a structure that worked, and this through-line of all these people mis-seeing or essentializing each other, which I thought really captured the book."

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2015

And human forms received the same essentializing treatment.

From Slate ● Oct. 18, 2012

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