dehumanize

verb

de·​hu·​man·​ize (ˌ)dē-ˈ(h)yü-mə-ˌnīz 

dehumanized; dehumanizing; dehumanizes

transitive verb

: to deprive (someone or something) of human qualities, personality, or dignity: such as

a

: to subject (someone, such as a prisoner) to inhuman or degrading conditions or treatment

"… you treat people with respect, you get respect back. You treat them like animals, you strip search them, you dehumanize them, you lock them up, you don't feed them … you are going to get that back … "

—Adelina Iftene

b

: to address or portray (someone) in a way that obscures or demeans that person's humanity or individuality

propaganda that dehumanizes the enemy

I'm always struck by the way language is used to dehumanize others.

—Anna Lind-Guzik

Treating Chicagoland violence as merely a tally necessarily dehumanizes its victims, but it also obscures so much of the larger story about that violence.

—Gene Demby

But that approach ignores the fundamental dynamics of racism, which dehumanizes people along crude lines, ignoring any internal distinctions among those with broadly similar looks, treating them all as uniformly suspicious.

—Sangay K. Mishra

c

: to remove or reduce human involvement or interaction in (something, such as a process or place)

Nurses are also fearful that the use of technology will dehumanize patient care.

—Laurie A. Huryk

Social media dehumanizes personal interactions, taking them out of the dining room, the neighborhood store and workplace and into a nowhere we call cyberspace.

—Kay S. Hymowitz

"To me, Ms. Cao [Fei] is trying to portray that, even in a dehumanized environment like the automated warehouse, you need that inspiration or that order from up high."

—David Barboza

dehumanization

(ˌ)dē-ˌ(h)yü-mə-nə-ˈzā-shən 

noun

Synonyms

• humiliate
• brutalize
• poison

Examples of dehumanize in a Sentence

Inspectors have observed terrible factory conditions that dehumanize workers.

the dehumanizing nature of torture

Recent Examples on the Web

Israel 'dehumanizing' Palestinian population To count as genocide, at least one of five acts must have occurred. —Emma Farge, USA Today, 16 Sep. 2025

And as social media is woven ever deeper into every corner of our lives — school, work, civic engagement, religious participation — dehumanizing images like these become harder for even the squeamish to avoid. —Zeynep Tufekci, Mercury News, 16 Sep. 2025

Democrats who are the least racially resentful are the most likely to vilify and dehumanize Republicans. —Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 15 Sep. 2025

As revealed by social media, far too many Americans, even those who know better, are comfortable dehumanizing those with different thoughts than them. —The Editorial Board, Oc Register, 14 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1818, in the meaning defined above