relativize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
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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
These relations are enormously relativized, subjected to a logic of vagueness.
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.
