dehumanize
/diːˈhjuːmənaɪz/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.15 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To take away humanity; to remove or deny human qualities, characteristics, or attributes; to impersonalize.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "In its consistently logical form Quietism makes communion between man and God an impossibility by annulling the distinction between them, ultimately reducing God to a vague and empty abstraction, and dehumanizing man."
- "Yet we are dismayed by the failures and forces that dehumanize and defeat the finest dreams and plans of this generation."
- "To what extent can we stop making the culture of the Other so dehumanized and Satanized as to make the Other fit to be genocidable?"
- "And, in this country, the traditional, ingrained way to dehumanize people, to make both their pain and their individuality irrelevant, is to rely on their race."
- "A Melbourne woman says she feels “dehumanised” after being filmed without consent for a “random act of kindness” TikTok that went viral."
- "From this sort of work, we learn to have a contempt for sadism, for anything that dehumanizes, and to have compassion for the everyday people who pay the price for the designs of proud and evil men."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *de Proto-Indo-European *-h₁ Proto-Indo-European *déh₁ Proto-Italic *dē Latin dē Latin dē-der. English de- Latin hūmānusbor. Old French umain Middle French humainbor. Middle English humayne English human Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English humanize English dehumanize From de- + humanize.
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /diːˈhjuːmənaɪz/