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
It’s not just the moralization that got caught up with breakfast that has changed how we see it, says Arndt Anderson.
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
The two methods of moralization are radically antagonistic.
From The Task of Social Hygiene by Ellis, Havelock
Some wander off into moralizations about rap music and pop culture.
From Time ● Jun. 23, 2014
We may admit all this, and yet find fault with the moralizations and homilies of Whittier.
From John Greenleaf Whittier His Life, Genius, and Writings by Kennedy, W. Sloane
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)
To this world the "Caractères" was now offered, modestly, as though it were a summing up of the moralizations of the last fifty years.
From Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France by Gosse, Edmund
She took the editorial, which was entitled "Waste," and ran down its heavily leaded phrases, smiling to herself at these moralizations of the devil turned friar.
From The Salamander by Johnson, Owen
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.
