bowdlerize

verb

bowd·​ler·​ize ˈbōd-lə-ˌrīz  ˈbau̇d- 

bowdlerized; bowdlerizing

transitive verb

1

literature : to expurgate (something, such as a book) by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgar

bowdlerize the text

2

: to modify by abridging, simplifying, or distorting in style or content

bowdlerization

ˌbōd-lə-rə-ˈzā-shən 

ˌbau̇d-

noun

bowdlerizer noun

Did you know?

In 1807, a new edition of the works of William Shakespeare hit the scene in England. Titled The Family Shakespeare, the collection of 20 of the Bard's plays in four volumes was at first anonymously edited, and promised in its preface to "remove every thing that could give just offence to the religious or virtuous mind." Though the sanitized project later became a public sensation (and a source of literary derision) after its expanded, ten-volume second edition was published in 1818 and credited solely to physician Thomas Bowdler, the original expurgation was in fact the work of his older sister Henrietta Maria "Harriet" Bowdler, an accomplished editor and author. Within a year of the younger Bowdler’s death in 1825, bowdlerize had come to refer to cutting out the dirty bits of other books and texts—testimony not only to the impact of his eye for impropriety, but to those of his sister Harriet as well, though her efforts were obscured by history, if not technically bowdlerized.

Synonyms

• censor

Examples of bowdlerize in a Sentence

bowdlerize a classic novel by removing offensive language

a bowdlerized version of “Gulliver's Travels” that purportedly makes it unobjectionable for children

Recent Examples on the Web

Congress and the president must counter the forces that seek to diminish, exploit or bowdlerize our understanding of this terrible and confounding un-American event. —James Reston Jr., Star Tribune, 29 Mar. 2021

The mobs of students — and their enabling professors and administrators — renaming buildings and bowdlerizing the language are still products of Western civilization. —Jonah Goldberg, Alaska Dispatch News, 28 Aug. 2017

The Bard gets bowdlerized to musical and comic effect in this touring production of the Broadway hit, in which the Bottom Brothers try to outdo that dude from Stratford-upon-Avon. —Kerry Reid, chicagotribune.com, 25 May 2017

Prince the raunchy sylph eventually became a Jehovah’s Witness who would bowdlerize his more explicit material in concert. —John Williams, New York Times, 11 Apr. 2017

Maybe there’s a kind of metaphor in there, about how young and spiky verve gets softened and bowdlerized by time spent in the world. —Richard Lawson, VanityFair.com, 17 Apr. 2017

Word History

Etymology

Thomas Bowdler †1825 English editor

First Known Use

1826, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for bowdlerize

• advertise
• aggrandize
• agonize
• alibis
• alkalies
• alkalis
• amortize
• amplifies
• analyse
• analyze
• anywise
• authorize

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