objectify
Americanverb (used with object)
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to present as an object, especially of sight, touch, or other physical sense; make objective; externalize.
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to treat (a person) as an object or thing.
Women are objectified and their physical attributes highlighted in ways that do not apply to men.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of objectify
Explanation
To objectify someone is to treat them as an object rather than as a human being. If your teacher thinks children should be seen and not heard, you might say he objectifies kids. There are many different ways to objectify a person, including forcing them to be silent, focusing on just their physical body and not their mind, or implying that their appearance or outward beauty is the only important thing about them. You can also use this verb's original meaning, "to take something abstract and make it concrete." Artists objectify abstract feelings and emotions by turning them into physical works of art, for example.
Vocabulary lists containing objectify
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"Myth as Structure in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon" by A. Leslie Harris
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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:
According to the team's authors, attempts to standardise and objectify the development and evaluation of chemical reactions are still quite new and relatively uncommon.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 10, 2024
Including the topic in medical education could “counteract an ever-present risk of medical injustices” and “the tendency to objectify patients and research participants,” the commission’s co-chairs told Science.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 15, 2023
Temu said that the pictures of the models with their faces cut off were not meant to objectify women and argued that other retail platforms showed similar photos.
From BBC ● Oct. 31, 2023
“I’m not looking for a fling, and when I am, I’m going to steer clear of men who objectify women,” Kat announces.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 14, 2023
“My sweetheart. My Nicole, I’m sorry. I stole it from you to save you from letting them objectify you.”
From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin
“I never felt objectified or stupid,” Bowen said of that scene.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2025
“Gaza’s inhabitants are objectified, reduced to numbers or blurry concepts. The media rarely shows unfiltered images or personal stories, because doing so would be too confronting for most viewers,” he said.
From Slate ● May 30, 2025
The library apologized, saying that it had “further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding.”
From New York Times ● Mar. 27, 2024
The Kraken, who’d received some outside complaints on social media about players being objectified, stopped posting BookTok content from there but left videos up on their social-media platforms.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 2, 2023
I hoped she didn’t think I objectified women.
From "Here to Stay" by Sara Farizan
The "objectifying" language is evidence of a need for better education around misogyny and violence against women, Villanueva said.
From BBC ● Feb. 6, 2026
“So it’s not like she was objectifying you. She was actually looking to express something from within you and make sure that you’re so seated in your body that the collision can create something new.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2025
In English we ‘it’ the living world; the objectifying, de-personalizing pronoun.
From Salon ● May 28, 2025
Although traditional beauty pageants have come under criticism for objectifying women’s bodies, Muhitu thinks the Oct.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 27, 2023
It was not, however, given serious consideration, largely because of certain alleged paradoxes involved, and because of an elementalistic and objectifying attitude toward the whole subject of time.
From Hunter Patrol by H. Beam Piper
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.
