6 results for: bowdlerize

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

bowd·ler·ize

Audio Help [bohd-luh-rahyz, boud-] Pronunciation Key

–verb (used with object), -ized, -iz·ing.

to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.

Also, especially British, bowd·ler·ise.

[Origin: 1830–40; after Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), English editor of an expurgated edition of Shakespeare

]

—Related forms

bowd·ler·ism, noun

bowd·ler·i·za·tion, noun

bowd·ler·iz·er, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
bowdlerize

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

bowd·ler·ize Audio Help (bōd'lə-rīz', boud'-) Pronunciation Key
tr.v. bowd·ler·ized, bowd·ler·iz·ing, bowd·ler·iz·es
To remove material that is considered offensive or objectionable from (a book, for example).

[After Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare in 1818.]

bowd'ler·ism n., bowd'ler·i·za'tion (-lər-ĭ-zā'shən) n., bowd'ler·iz'er n.

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
bowdlerize

1836, from Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), English editor who in 1818 published a notorious expurgated Shakespeare, "in which those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family."

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

bowdlerize
verb
edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate; "bowdlerize a novel"

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Bowdlerize

Bowd"ler*ize\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bowdlerized; p. pr. & vb. n. Bowdlerizing.] [After Dr. Thomas Bowdler, an English physician, who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare in 1818.] To expurgate, as a book, by omitting or modifying the parts considered offensive.

It is a grave defect in the splendid tale of Tom Jones . . . that a Bowlderized version of it would be hardly intelligible as a tale. --F. Harrison. -- Bowd`ler*i*za"tion, n. -- Bowd"ler*ism, n.

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