as in to humiliate
to make (someone) feel or behave more like an animal than a human being
being deprived of clothes dehumanized the prisoners
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Recent Examples of dehumanize
These aren’t random acts of violence—they’re the inevitable endpoint of a culture that has normalized dehumanizing those who express perspectives that differ from our own.
—
Margie Warrell, Forbes.com, 17 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
There is an effort by the radical left to dehumanize the MAGA movement.
—NBC news, 14 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dehumanize
Margie Warrell, Forbes.com, 17 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
There is an effort by the radical left to dehumanize the MAGA movement.
—NBC news, 14 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dehumanize
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dehumanize
Verb
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There was this huge peak between 2000 and about 2018 where there was a decentralized anti-Fascist movement that’s responsible for Richard Spencer going home, for Matthew Heimbach being humiliated.—
Fiction Non Fiction,
Literary Hub,
23 Oct. 2025
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Pressing for payment could humiliate people, who often arrive with their extended families, Parmar explained, and in a community this close-knit, that could mean losing dozens of patients, including many of the Medicaid patients who keep the clinic afloat.—
Helen Ouyang,
The Atlantic,
21 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Brock Lesnar's Road to WrestleMania The Beast brutalized Cena this past Saturday night and defeated him with relative ease after hitting six consecutive F-5's.—
Andrew Ravens,
MSNBC Newsweek,
25 Sep. 2025
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Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli and Gabe Kidd brutalized Ospreay, targeting the neck which he was set to have surgery on.—
Ryan Gaydos,
FOXNews.com,
25 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Leawood police fielded nearly 400 food-poisoning complaints and conducted about 130 interviews, a volume that briefly crashed the department’s records system, according to the Johnson County Post, KSHB 41 and KCTV5.—
Christina Coulter,
PEOPLE,
28 Oct. 2025
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Chloe then baked a cake poisoned with oleander leaves killing the owner’s wife and some children.—
Noreen Kompanik,
Boston Herald,
26 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Dehumanize.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dehumanize. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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