relativize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
-
to make or become relative
-
(tr) to apply the theory of relativity to
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of relativize
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:
Ms. Antonetta’s effort to relativize T4 and the subsequent practice of psychiatry in the U.S. and elsewhere works less well.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 2025
"Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident," he said.
From Reuters ● Oct. 5, 2023
“We don’t want to relativize it. It stands on its own.”
From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2020
“This exhibit is a victory in the fight against negationism, the efforts to deny and relativize what happened during our dictatorship.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 14, 2017
"We are faced with an effort to totally relativize the Ustasha crimes," said the head of the Zagreb Jewish community, Ognjen Kraus.
From US News ● May 14, 2016
In many cases, the data was industry relativized so that each company could be judged against all of the others on a level playing field.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
In contrast to the iron-clad medical ethics of old, the absolute value of human life became relativized.
From Nature ● Oct. 28, 2019
But if the severity of every abuse is relativized, something less tangible but at least as important is lost as well.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 29, 2018
After a career spent railing against relativism, he relativized the world’s last divine-right office, becoming the first Pope since 1415 to resign and giving his successor, Francis, the sway that he so astonishingly exploits today.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 15, 2016
This is not a time for rules and laws, unless they are taken from the books of the past, relativized and integrated in the tools needed in artistic practice, made into underlying principles.
From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai
It is a form of re-victimization that has as its goal negating, relativizing or erasing real suffering.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2021
And the modern experience of globalization has had an inevitable relativizing effect, downgrading confidence in any one faith’s exclusive claims to truth.
From New York Times ● Aug. 14, 2021
The commission’s report reproduced the structure of Russian memory policy, acknowledging a historical evil and then relativizing it in a shocking manner.
From New York Times ● Jun. 29, 2021
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.
