dehumanize
Americanverb (used with object)
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dehumanizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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dehumanized,
past participle, past
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dehumanizing
present participle
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to regard, represent, or treat (a person or group) as less than human.
Society still has a tendency to devalue and dehumanize those with disabilities and to suppress their voices.
-
to deprive of human qualities or attributes; divest of individuality.
Conformity dehumanized him.
verb
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to deprive of human qualities
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to render mechanical, artificial, or routine
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dehumanizesimple
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dehumanizessimple
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have dehumanizedperfect
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has dehumanizedperfect
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am dehumanizingprogressive
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are dehumanizingprogressive
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is dehumanizingprogressive
-
have been dehumanizingperfect progressive
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has been dehumanizingperfect progressive
Past
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dehumanizedsimple
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had dehumanizedperfect
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was dehumanizingprogressive
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were dehumanizingprogressive
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had been dehumanizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dehumanize
Explanation
To dehumanize someone is to make them either feel or appear somehow less than human. Laboring under terrible conditions can dehumanize workers, making them feel more like robots than people. War can dehumanize people in a few different ways. Violent or seemingly endless fighting might dehumanize soldiers, causing them to stop feeling normal human emotions. War propaganda might dehumanize the enemy, making people more willing to fight against and kill them. At the heart of dehumanize is human, and its Latin root humanus, which means both "human" and "humane, kind, or civilized."
Vocabulary lists containing dehumanize
March: Book One
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You Call This Democracy?
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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
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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:
On its coal-dust-begrimed surface, Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 play “The Hairy Ape” is a stark, dramatically propulsive illustration of how brutal, underpaid manual labor can dehumanize and destroy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Social media has a way of exacerbating preexisting social tensions and divisions, making it easier to dehumanize the other side and engage in a kind of verbal warfare.
From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2025
“Bishop Rojas’ decision signals that the Church’s mission encompasses a higher calling: to embrace the downtrodden, welcome the stranger and distance itself from policies that dehumanize them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2025
How far are we willing to go to utterly dehumanize ourselves?
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2024
Treating differences as a threat enables one society to dehumanize the other.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
“When political leaders, influencers, and those with a large social platform choose language that dehumanizes communities, families get hurt, and hate crimes rise.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2024
A bit more style earlier in the film might have helped stave off the deliberately bland feel that dehumanizes the characters.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2022
“The use of the word ‘inmate’ further dehumanizes and demoralizes them,” he said in Ms. Hochul’s press release.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 9, 2022
“It really dehumanizes the events, the consequences of shootings, and makes it all into a joke,” said Whitney Phillips, a longtime disinformation researcher.
From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2022
As far as it can do so, it dehumanizes man, and treats him as a thing without a soul.
From Three Prize Essays on American Slavery by A.C. Baldwin
The press corps has a job to do, but observers say its presence and callous pursuit of images that will sell can make immigrants feel dehumanized.
From Slate ● Oct. 10, 2025
“And the hostages have been dehumanized every day since. But that cannot be a license to dehumanize others.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 8, 2024
He wasn’t looking at her, wasn’t focused on her, had dehumanized her in his mind and was treating her as less than a service worker should treat their customer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2024
In Season 2, Thorfinn is sold off into slavery where he is dehumanized further, uttering the gut-wrenching line, “Not a single good thing has happened to me in my entire life.”
From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2023
“People as far on the fringes as you can get, completely dehumanized by ‘normal’ society.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Like the billionaire geniuses who created social media that wound up depressing, dumbing down and dehumanizing civilization, the motives of these companies were purely financial.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026
They added that they "oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people" and "pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence".
From BBC ● Dec. 23, 2025
“We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 13, 2025
“The entire process of getting and keeping an entry-level job has become a grueling and dehumanizing ordeal over the past decade,” the author writes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
It is dehumanizing, for it forces one to adapt by becoming more self- contained and insulated.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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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.
