decolonize

verb

de·​col·​o·​nize (ˌ)dē-ˈkä-lə-ˌnīz 

variants also British decolonise

decolonized; decolonizing; decolonizes

transitive verb

1

: to free (a people or area) from colonial status : to relinquish control of (a subjugated people or area)

the year the country was decolonized

The country faces international pressure to decolonize the territory.

2

: to free from the dominating influence of a colonizing power

especially : to identify, challenge, and revise or replace assumptions, ideas, values, and practices that reflect a colonizer's dominating influence and especially a Eurocentric dominating influence

To decolonise and not just diversify curriculums is to recognise that knowledge is inevitably marked by power relations. … A decolonised curriculum would bring questions of class, caste, race, gender, ability and sexuality into dialogue with each other, instead of pretending that there is some kind of generic identity we all share.

—Priyamvada Gopal

Per a statement, staff [at the University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum] have removed a total of 120 human remains from display, moving them to storage as part of a museum-wide effort to decolonize the Pitt Rivers' collections.

—Nora McGreevy

Decolonizing science will also involve encouraging Western institutions that hold imperial scientific collections to reflect more on the violent political contexts of war and colonization in which these items were acquired. An obvious step forward would be to discuss repatriating scientific specimens to former colonies, as botanists working on plants originally from Angola but held primarily in Europe have done.

—Rohan Deb Roy

Decolonizing my mind has been a continual process of rethinking the values that guide my actions. It's emotional, intellectual and spiritual labor that involves centering myself as an African-American woman and not allowing my entire existence to be a performance tailored for the white, cisgender male gaze …

—JerVae (Jae Anthony)

Examples of decolonize in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The renovation, which cost seventy million dollars, began in 2021, as a global campaign to decolonize Western museums was prompting some institutions to repatriate looted objects, and others to engage in tortured self-critique. —Julian Lucas, New Yorker, 30 June 2025

Despite a movement to decolonize food by rethinking colonial legacies of power and extractive ways of eating, Michelin has derived its stellar reputation primarily from reviewing metropolitan European cuisine. —Tulasi Srinivas, The Conversation, 3 June 2025

As traditional donors retreat, local leaders have an opportunity to reclaim ownership of the international development agenda and truly decolonize aid. —Trickleup, Forbes.com, 2 June 2025

When Jamaica was seeking independence from British rule in the ’60s, my grandmother took it a step further in the ’70s—decolonizing the way men dressed. —Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 21 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1851, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for decolonize

• actualize
• antagonize
• apologise
• apologize
• capitalize
• categorize
• characterize
• commercialize
• conceptualize
• contrariwise
• criminalize
• decentralize