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
By telling stories, you objectify your own experience.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
“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
“All I knew is that I never felt like it was enough. I questioned myself. I felt scrutinized, judged, objectified, often humiliated,” Fraser says.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 6, 2022
On behalf of the objectified female subjects of hip-hop songs, she declared in Spanish, “I am not, nor will I ever be, your babycakes!,” as thousands shrieked along.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2022
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
Moss described her experience with the iconic 1992 Calvin Klein underwear ad with actor Mark Wahlberg as objectifying.
From Salon ● Nov. 18, 2024
But I also want to connect my brother’s experience with the broader trend of objectifying the American worker.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 5, 2024
“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
It is to the understanding Feuerbach attributes man's capacity for objectifying himself or of attributing to the outward world those qualities which really exist only within.
From George Eliot; a Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy by George Willis Cooke
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
