as in to humiliate
to make (someone) feel or behave more like an animal than a human being
men who had been bestialized by war
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bestialize
Verb
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And videotaping it to humiliate them.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
21 Dec. 2025 -
She had never been arrested before and felt humiliated when her mugshot was plastered all over the news after her arrest.—
Grethel Aguila,
Miami Herald,
12 Dec. 2025
Verb
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For part of the trial of El Chapo, the city shut down the Brooklyn Bridge; his lawyers tried to move the proceedings to Philadelphia, because the jury pool was poisoned by angry commuters.—
Zach Helfand,
New Yorker,
12 Jan. 2026
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Alice is paranoid, thinking her roommate is rearranging her shower supplies and that someone might be poisoning her food.—
Mary Ann Grossmann,
Twin Cities,
11 Jan. 2026
Verb
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Sociologist Anthony Cortese found that in popular culture black women are often othered, animalized and exoticized, associating women of color with primitivity or wild sexuality.—
Katie Edwards,
Washington Post,
14 July 2017
Verb
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What many saw as a touching moment of instinctive friendship became a spectacle that played directly into stereotypes historically used to dehumanize Black women.—
Lydia Patrick,
MSNBC Newsweek,
9 Dec. 2025
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Is it meant to be galvanizing to watch an avatar of dehumanizing capitalism get taken down a peg by an even crueler villain?—
Angie Han,
HollywoodReporter,
14 Nov. 2025
Verb
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How about the Hollywood know-nothings Susan Sarandon or Mark Ruffalo, who have so much to say about the suffering of Hamas terrorists but not a peep for people being brutalized and murdered by actual terrorists?—
Bobby Zirkin,
Baltimore Sun,
8 Jan. 2026
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Much of that has to do with a shield that can repel attacks, interact with the environment and brutalize adversaries.—
Gieson Cacho,
Mercury News,
29 Dec. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Bestialize.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bestialize. Accessed 16 Jan. 2026.
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