Definition of "infantilize" [infantilize]

• To reduce to an infantile state or condition: "It creates a crisis that infantilizes them—causes grown men to squabble like kids about trivial things” ( New Yorker). (verb-transitive)
• To treat or condescend to as if still a young child: "The Victorian physician infantilized his patient” ( Judith Moore). (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.

• "What qkslvrwolf would have us do is infantilize the military – he would have us accept “I was only following orders” as a valid defense."
• "Damon blames part of this on influential childrearing experts such as David Elkind and Penelope Leach, whose approaches may encourage adults to infantilize children on the pretext of protecting them."
• "It is most often to impute naivete and ineffectualness, i.e. the term is used to infantilize its target."