Definition of "humanize" []

• To portray or endow with human characteristics or attributes; make human: humanized the puppets with great skill. (verb-transitive)
• To imbue with humaneness or human kindness; civilize: acts of courtesy that humanize life in a big city. (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.

• "Unlike some commentators who concluded that through the recounting of these events with their frequent expressions of dismay with the program and its methods, Littell was attempting to "humanize" Dr. Aue, I found the portrait of SS officers manifesting a degree of struggle with the task they'd been assigned a compelling alternative to the usual image of Nazis as unambiguously malevolent."
• "I was sort of hoping they'd find a way to work into the actual movie, and I think it might've helped "humanize" the film a bit."
• "* Howard Kurtz says the onus is on the GOP to "humanize" Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner, because he "comes off as a permanently bronzed, country club Republican, reflexively saying no to everything the administration wants.""