Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To treat or condescend to as if still a young child.
- transitive verb To reduce to an infantile state or condition.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To reduce (a person) to the state or status of an
infant . - verb transitive To
treat (a person) like achild .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word infantilize.
Examples
-
Above all, questions themselves convey respect: I honor you when I refuse to infantilize your mind.
Irshad Manji: The Quranic Solution To The 9/11 Abomination Irshad Manji 2011
-
Above all, questions themselves convey respect: I honor you when I refuse to infantilize your mind.
Irshad Manji: The Quranic Solution To The 9/11 Abomination Irshad Manji 2011
-
Even the ones who are all like "I'm an intellectual, confident, non-insane human being begging to be taken seriously in a society that has a tendency to caricature and infantilize adult women."
Silpa Kovvali: How Mindy Kaling Made Me Sadsies Silpa Kovvali 2011
-
It neutralizes a transmitter the dictators of Sloven use to infantilize the rest of the colony.
-
Isn't this inconsistent with Kidz Bop's mission to infantilize everything it touches?
James Kotecki: Kidz Bop: The Worst Thing Ever? James Kotecki 2011
-
Because, you know, the shift from “that race is innately inferior so we must exterminate them” to “that race is innately inferior so we must infantilize them” shows how far progressives have progressed in their racism.
-
Damon blames part of this on influential childrearing experts such as David Elkind and Penelope Leach, whose approaches may encourage adults to infantilize children on the pretext of protecting them.
-
What qkslvrwolf would have us do is infantilize the military – he would have us accept “I was only following orders” as a valid defense.
-
It is most often to impute naivete and ineffectualness, i.e. the term is used to infantilize its target.
-
Isn't this inconsistent with Kidz Bop's mission to infantilize everything it touches?
James Kotecki: Kidz Bop: The Worst Thing Ever? James Kotecki 2011
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.