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Definition of "barbarize" [bar•ba•rize]

  • To make or become crude, savage, or barbarous. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "barbarize" in a sentence
  • "Italian, or their native tongue; Pombal declaring, that the custom of speaking Latin was only "to teach them to barbarize.""
  • "This might tend to barbarize, demoralize, and exasperate the whole mass and produce most deplorable consequences."
  • ""Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.""