Word of the Day

: October 15, 2006

bowdlerize

verb BOUD-ler-ize

What It Means

1 : to expurgate by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgar

2 : to modify by abridging, simplifying, or distorting in style or content

bowdlerize in Context

The new regime bowdlerized history books, deleting all mention of the leaders of the resistance.

Did You Know?

Few editors have achieved the notoriety of Thomas Bowdler. Bowdler was trained as a physician, but when illness prevented him from practicing medicine, he turned to warning Europeans about unsanitary conditions at French watering places. He then carried his quest for purification to literature, and in 1818 he published his Family Shakspeare [sic], a work in which he promised that "those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." The sanitized volume was popular with the public of the day, but literary critics denounced his modifications of the words of the Bard. Bowdler applied his literary eraser broadly, and within 11 years of his death in 1825, the word "bowdlerize" was being used to refer to expurgating books or other texts.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.