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:
"They did do an assembly about how to treat women and not to objectify them."
From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2025
"Men like this need their passes for these events to revoked. Women are not your objects to objectify and command to move as you see fit."
From Salon ● Apr. 16, 2024
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
That is, to objectify in words some insight derived from my living in the form of action, scene, and dialogue.
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
“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
A silver 9-inch television, chrome-plated and as pristine as a Jeff Koons bunny, is revealed as its own objectified gesture of triumphal power, discreetly encased in a Plexiglas box and elevated atop a pedestal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
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
It added that even if some viewers inferred innuendo, it did not contain explicit content or objectifying imagery.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 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
What’s key to remember is that this new wave of hype surrounding East Asian media is less keen on whitewashing or objectifying than it may have been during previous eras.
From Salon ● Sep. 17, 2025
“She’s not objectifying these men,” says the critic and curator Bob Nickas, a friend since the mid-80s.
From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2023
By objectifying them, he removes them from him and makes himself their superior.
From Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic by Benedetto Croce
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.
