mongrelize

American  

[muhng-gruh-lahyz, mong-] / ˈmʌŋ grəˌlaɪz, ˈmɒŋ- /

especially British, mongrelise

verb (used with object)

mongrelized, mongrelizing

1. to subject (a breed, group, etc.) to crossbreeding, especially with one considered inferior.

2. to mix the kinds, classes, types, characters, or sources of origin of (people, animals, or things).

3. to make debased or impure.

   The French they speak is mongrelized.

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mongrelize British  

/ ˈmʌŋɡrəˌlaɪz /

verb

1. (tr) to make mixed or mongrel in breed, race, character, kind, etc

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Other Word Forms

• mongrelization noun
• mongrelizer noun

Etymology

Origin of mongrelize

First recorded in 1620–30; mongrel + -ize

Example Sentences

At twenty-six, thoroughly mongrelized, I began a job in New York City.

From The New Yorker

With lavish celebrations of the seventieth anniversary of V-E Day just weeks away, Russia was hailed as the Continent’s protector against this new, squishy, mongrelized, morally debased version of the Second World War-era threat.

From The New Yorker

I feel myself completely hybridized, mongrelized, American and Pakistani, all mixed up.

From New York Times

“Migrations,” with its suggestion of an itinerant and even mongrelized cultural legacy, sets the stage nicely for her: it’s an album suffused with awareness of tradition but breezy about its debts.

From New York Times

In it, she extolled not just lovely Greek Revival temples but also mongrelized houses from the early 1800s.

From New York Times

Related Words

• crossbreed
• hybridize
• interbreed
• mix