moralization
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Explanation
When you endlessly lecture someone about what they should do to be a better, more ethical person, that's moralization. Many folk tales and fables conclude with a moral, a specific lesson to be learned, which is one kind of moralization: "Slow and steady wins the race!" If you judge other people's moral decisions, acting as if you're an expert on what's right and what's wrong, you are engaging in moralization of the most annoying kind. We can trace moralization back to the Latin root moralis, "proper behavior of a person in society."
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:
From diet and "lite" foods and drinks to expensive "superfoods," one constant across these changing trends has been the moralization of food as "good" or "bad."
From Salon ● Jan. 30, 2023
The moralization bias was dialed up to 11, of course, but there was also a lack of enforcement.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 19, 2017
That moralization wasn’t just around religion and health: it also incorporated our reverence for hard work.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 28, 2016
Cosby failed to meet this standard, in large part because his moralization actually increased the public’s interest in the content of his deposition.
From Slate ● Jul. 8, 2015
But the degree of the moralization of a people has been certainly one of the criteria of survival; and thus by a purely mechanical elimination mankind has grown more and more moral.
From Problems of Conduct by Drake, Durant
Some wander off into moralizations about rap music and pop culture.
From Time ● Jun. 23, 2014
Thus British comment on America took the form, at first of moralizations, now severe toward the South, now indifferent, yet very generally asserting the essential justice of the Northern position.
From Great Britain and the American Civil War by Adams, Ephraim Douglass
It is of the same feeble character as the flashy modern moralizations upon War.
From The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 by Japp, Alexander H. (Alexander Hay)
Meanwhile many were the moralizations in the British press upon Bull Run's revelation of Northern military weakness.
From Great Britain and the American Civil War by Adams, Ephraim Douglass
The classics were allowed to perish, and their place was taken by Christian poets such as Prudentius or Juvencus, by moralizations of Aesop, patchwork compositions known as 'centos' on Scriptural themes, and the like.
From The Age of Erasmus Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London by Allen, P. S. (Percy Stafford)
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.
