Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To cause (another) to behave like an animal.
- transitive verb To depict or represent in the form of an animal.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make into an animal; endow with the attributes of an animal; represent in animal form: as, the Egyptians animalized their deities.
- To give an animal character or appearance to; especially, to render animal in nature or habits; brutalize; sensualize; excite the animal passions of.
- To convert into animal matter by the process of assimilation; assimilate, as food.
- To give, as to vegetable fiber, some of the characteristics of animal fiber, as when cotton is so treated with albumin or casein, or a strong solution of caustic soda, that the fiber shrinks, becomes stronger, and is made capable of absorbing aniline dyes.
- Also spelled
animalise .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To endow with the properties of an animal; to represent in animal form.
- transitive verb To convert into animal matter by the processes of assimilation.
- transitive verb To render animal or sentient; to reduce to the state of a lower animal; to sensualize.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To represent in the form of an
animal - verb To
brutalize
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb become brutal or insensitive and unfeeling
- verb represent in the form of an animal
- verb make brutal, unfeeling, or inhuman
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word animalize.
Examples
-
I mean, to kind of animalize them, much like they did referring to Venus and Serena Williams that day.
-
Moreover, "Sensory associations helped animalize blacks," which "probably offered whites powerful rationalizations for sexual exploitation." [p. 19]
The South Continues to "Make" Race: Will the Supreme Court Follow? 2006
-
Sharp alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it: this is what over-much horse tends to animalize a man into.
-
Instead of saying that we Americanize them, we should confess that we animalize them.
Woman and the New Race Margaret Sanger 1924
-
Instead of saying that we Americanize them, we should confess that we animalize them.
-
It is better for the child to humanize animal relationships than to animalize human relationships, -- and this can be achieved only through a constant observance of the human basis in the sexual as indeed in all phases of a child's education.
The Social Emergency Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals Charles William Eliot 1880
-
Sharp alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it; this is what over-much horse tends to animalize a man into.
Elsie Venner Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851
-
Sharp alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it; this is what over-much horse tends to animalize a man into.
Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851
-
In these, her first and feeblest attempts to animalize organization, it is latent, because undeveloped, and merely potential; while, in the human brain, the last and most consummate of her combined energies, it is again lost or disguised in the subtlety (15) and multiplicity of its evolution.
Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803
-
Then to animalize a substance, is only to destroy the obstacles that prevent its being active or sensible.
The System of Nature, Volume 1 Paul Henri Thiry Holbach 1756
ruzuzu commented on the word animalize
"To give, as to vegetable fiber, some of the characteristics of animal fiber, as when cotton is so treated with albumin or casein, or a strong solution of caustic soda, that the fiber shrinks, becomes stronger, and is made capable of absorbing aniline dyes." --CD&C
April 11, 2012