Hellenize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of Hellenize
First recorded in 1605–15, Hellenize is from the Greek word Hellēnízein to imitate the Greeks, speak Greek. See Hellene, -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:
But unlike the early Christians, who had freed themselves to interpret parts of the Old Testament as metaphor, Maimonides was unwilling to Hellenize his religion completely.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
They did not abolish the individuality of either; they did not Hellenize even so much of West Asia as they succeeded in holding to the end.
From The Ancient East by D. G. (David George) Hogarth
He could Hellenize and philosophize, and, on occasion, he could Romanticize; but 'The Song of the Bell' shows how deeply, after all, his feeling was rooted in the life of the German people.
From The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller by Calvin Thomas
He set himself to Hellenize or Catholicize Armenian Christianity, and in furtherance of this aim set up a hierarchy officially dependent on the Cappadocian.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel" by Various
Lycon of Lacedæmon to Democrates of Athens, greeting:—Can he who Medizes in the summer Hellenize in the spring?
From A Victor of Salamis by William Stearns Davis
Eventually, the brutal repression of Jews who remained in their homeland led to the collapse of the Hellenized Jewish communities throughout the Roman Empire.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 15, 2022
His last name — Adetokunbo — was Hellenized when he finally became a citizen of Greece and received his passport, one month before the Bucks drafted him 15th in 2013.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 23, 2021
Some speculate that, by the time of the Second Temple, many Jews were Hellenized, and early converts to Christianity were merely borrowing standard Dionysian rites.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 7, 2019
Read in its historical context, however, the Hanukkah story is really about a revolt against the Hellenized Jews who had fallen madly in love with the sophisticated, globalizing superculture of their day.
From Slate ● Nov. 28, 2013
Many Jews inhabited Alexandria, but there they were half Hellenized; here for the first time she saw Jews as the procurator had described them, and as they were in their own native nest.
From Hania by Henryk Sienkiewicz
But this was not an isolated instance of the methods employed in "Hellenizing" Moslem populations.
From The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the Ægean by E. Alexander (Edward Alexander) Powell
In each country conquered he usually succeeded in Hellenizing the native peoples.
From The Makers and Teachers of Judaism by Charles Foster Kent
Yet the most interesting, as well as the most important, feature of the age is the diffusion of Hellenic culture—the "Hellenizing" of the Orient.
From Early European History by Hutton Webster
The Hellenizing of the seat of empire and of the state, which was essential to the independent development of Byzantine literature, proceeds yet more slowly.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel" by Various
The one great instance of assimilation of foreign nationalities by the Greeks is the Hellenizing of the Slavs, who from the 6th century had migrated into central Greece and the Peloponnese.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel" by Various
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.
