Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To remove material that is considered offensive or objectionable from (a book, for example); expurgate.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To expurgate in editing by expunging words or passages considered offensive or indelicate.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To expurgate, as a book, by omitting or modifying the parts considered offensive; to remove morally objectionable parts; -- said of literary texts.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
remove oralter those parts of a text consideredoffensive ,vulgar , or otherwiseunseemly .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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His actions did spawn the term "bowdlerize," which means to gut a work of literature.
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His actions did spawn the term "bowdlerize," which means to gut a work of literature.
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They take an idea, bowdlerize it, blow it up, make it infantile and spend $100 million to give people a brief escape from their boring and often demeaning lives at work.
What Would Fox’s Alan Moore-Approved ‘Watchmen’ Look Like? 2009
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The above excerpt, “Hamlet,” illustrates how such lingual poverty might bowdlerize the legacy of poetry.
Quick Review 04 : Christian Bök : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007
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Who is anyone to expurgate or bowdlerize the word of God?
Lionel: Obama in Cairo: The Immutable Sapience of the Good Book(s) 2009
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I asked the guy who would bowdlerize Larry Niven if given the chance this question: "If someone was writing the biography of your life, would you want it to have a sex scene?"
bowdlerized 2007
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I asked the guy who would bowdlerize Larry Niven if given the chance this question: "If someone was writing the biography of your life, would you want it to have a sex scene?"
Archive 2007-09-01 2007
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Jane, please, please never let them bowdlerize you.
Firedoglake » Murray Waas Says VandeHei Can Take a Victory Lap 2006
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It doesn't matter whether we bowdlerize the lyrics, the musical style has nothing familiar to them other than a major scale and it will not strike them as comfortable or familiar unless they are lapsed Luterans.
Contemporary Worship Christine Robinson 2006
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I bowdlerize the comment, which concluded with a request that I spare him further examples of local superstition, a subject with which he was only too well acquainted.
The Curse of the Pharaohs Peters, Elizabeth, 1927- 1981
Silpa commented on the word bowdlerize
To receive an R rating, the entire movie was bowdlerized because it contained so much violence and grotesque subject matter.
October 29, 2017