bastardize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to lower in condition or worth; debase.
hybrid works that neither preserve nor bastardize existing art forms.
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to declare or prove (someone) to be a bastard.
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Australian. to harass or humiliate as part of initiation into a college or regiment.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to debase; corrupt
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archaic to declare illegitimate
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bastardize
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:
“People were up in arms about how you could bastardize the written word, and do it on this screen, and not have the tactile feeling of the page and the leather-bound book,” he recalled.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2022
"I wish we didn't bastardize the word 'leadership' in Washington," tweeted Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill.
From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2022
“If we bastardize Congress, we’re also bastardizing our country,” Cayetano said in his video message.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 13, 2020
“I have not seen a foreign player bastardize the system. Most are serious about school.”
From Washington Post ● May 30, 2017
And were we to suppose his estate in his power to bequeath as he pleases; why should a man resolve, for the gratifying of his foolish humour only, to bastardize his race?
From Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 4 by Richardson, Samuel
I was just picturing them both hating how I bastardized their song.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
While this can prove tricky for famous estates and those looking to capitalize from someone else’s legacy, it ensures that beloved works can live forever, even if it’s in some loony, bastardized way.
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2025
“They’ve bastardized the concept of what NFTs were supposed to be,” said Aja Trier, an artist in Texas whose work has been copied and sold on OpenSea.
From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2022
Yet, both self-care and kindness have been bastardized, transformed into ways to sell things that don’t materially help anyone except the seller’s bank account and the buyer’s own ego.
From Slate ● Dec. 10, 2020
Instead of Steinbeck and Shakespeare, her students read “watered-down news articles or biographies, bastardized novels, memos or brochures.”
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
Duck à l’orange has a reputation as an archaic 1970s atrocity owing to American cooks bastardizing what should be a glistening garnish into a sickly-sweet goop.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2025
The show’s actors say they, too, have been struck by Lester’s sure hand in getting big laughs and by how she brings a modern sensibility to the role without bastardizing it.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2022
“If we bastardize Congress, we’re also bastardizing our country,” Cayetano said in his video message.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 13, 2020
“I think it is absolutely ludicrous that two countries so blessed with such a wonderful product should be going to court and bastardizing the name manuka,” he said.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 2, 2019
I should haue bin that I am, had the maidenlest Starre in the Firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
From King Lear by Shakespeare, William
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.
