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Definition of Bowdlerise
1. Verb. Edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate. "They won't bowdlerise the story "; "Bowdlerize a novel"
Generic synonyms: Abbreviate, Abridge, Contract, Cut, Foreshorten, Reduce, Shorten
Derivative terms: Bowdler, Bowdlerisation, Bowdlerisation, Bowdleriser, Bowdlerization, Bowdlerization, Bowdlerizer, Castration, Expurgation, Expurgator
Definition of Bowdlerise
1. Verb. To remove those parts of a text considered offensive, vulgar or adult in nature. ¹
2. Verb. (context: by extension) To remove those parts of a text considered to be damaging to an authority. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Bowdlerise
1. [v -ISED, -ISING, -ISES]
Lexicographical Neighbors of Bowdlerise
Literary usage of Bowdlerise
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. The Dictionary of National Biography by Sidney Lee (1908)
"... impiety and vice—a society •which was afterwards replaced by the Society !
for the Suppression of Vice. The verb to ' bowdlerise ' is of course a ..."
2. The Bookman (1910)
"... her liberties of detail, and her austere excision of humorous passages and
characters—managed to bowdlerise the Bard in a way that just hit the taste of ..."
3. The Quarterly Review by William Gifford, John Taylor Coleridge, John Gibson Lockhart, Whitwell Elwin, William Macpherson, William Smith, John Murray, Rowland Edmund Prothero Ernle, George Walter Prothero (1903)
"We bowdlerise a few French plays, and these not the best; we translate some of
the more popular French novels; we translate Tolstoy, Annunzio, ..."
4. The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century by Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1911)
"... wearisome, soul-destroying books : the invention of the Iranian serving to
bowdlerise the thoughts of the Hellene in the form of spurious learning ! ..."
5. The Historic Note-book: With an Appendix of Battles by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1891)
"bowdlerise. To expurgate a book in editing it. Dispatches are bowdlerised by
government, or 'edited,' that objectionable statements may be omitted, ..."
6. Dramatic Opinions and Essays, with an Apology: With an Apology by Bernard Shaw (1907)
"Mr. Poel has had to bowdlerise it in deference to the modesty of the barristers
of the Inner Temple. For instance, Mercury's relations with Maria stop short ..."
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