adjectify meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

adjectify

verb

Etymology From adjective + -fy.

To convert (a word that is not an adjective) into an adjective.

It is remarkable of words denoting dimension, that they all are abstracted into names by subjoining th, as length, breadth, width, and depth, and that these are not ordinarily allowed to be adjectified by adding either y or full.1800, “The Trial and Condemnation of Lengthy”, in The Monthly Magazine, and American Review, for the Year 1800: From July to December Inclusive, volume III, New York: […] T. & J. Swords, page 172:
If we desire to affirm that the substantive is put in action, we adjectify it by adding to its positive the termination tla; for example atawit, love; adjective affirming action atawit-la, loving.1862, M^([ar]ie). C^([har]les). Pandosy, translated by George Gibbs and J[ohn] G[ilmary] Shea, Grammar and Dictionary of the Yakama Language (Shea’s Library of American Linguistics; VI), New York: Cramoisy Press, page 14:

2 more examples

Wiles’ title – Foredoomed is my Forest: The Diary of a Zimbabwe [sic] Farmer – is problematic for another reason. He may not use Africa, but his failure to ‘adjectify’ Zimbabwe is an all too obvious reflection on the quality and content of the rest of the book.2012, Rory Pilossof, The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Farmers’ Voices from Zimbabwe, UCT Press; Weaver Press, page 186:
The influence of Kafka on popular culture is undeniable, whether people have read his books or not. He is one of a few authors who have had their names adjectified. Situations or organisations are called ‘kafkaesque’ to denounce an absurdly painful series of events or experiences usually set in or involving a bureaucratic organisation (see for instance Hodson, Roscigno, Martin, & Lopez, 2013).2014, Cécile Rozuel, “Otherness in Self and Organisations: Kafka’s The Metamorphosis to Stir Moral Reflection”, in Michael Schwartz, Howard Harris, editors, The Contribution of Fiction to Organizational Ethics (Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations; volume 11), Emerald Group Publishing, page 26:

To describe something.

She adjectifies the teens as “iridescent,” the twenties as “glowing,” the thirties as “warning” and the forties as “triumphant.”1933 June 6, “Barbara Gould Reveals Her Secrets Of Feminine Beauty at Wasson’s Store”, in The Indianapolis Star, volume 31, number 1, page 7:
Adjectifying the “lower” animals to describe dastardly conduct on the part of “Superior” animals is always incorrect because the lower animals never act in a dastardly fashion.1936, Time, volume XXVIII, page 6:

4 more examples

However, since Moers’s work in the mid-1970s, attempts to adjectify Stein’s work as “female” have entangled that work far more deeply with Stein’s femaleness as femaleness, as an elemental condition, inseparable from the body.1986, Catharine R. Stimpson, “The Somagrams of Gertrude Stein”, in Susan Rubin Suleiman, editor, The Female Body in Western Culture: Contemporary Perspectives, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 40:
Niebuhr “adjectifies” love in terms of self-sacrifice and thus “gains too easy a victory, and by a somewhat mistaken strategy, in his campaign to demonstrate the (relevant) impossibility of love.”1993, D. Stephen Long, Tragedy, Tradition, Transformism: The Ethics Of Paul Ramsey, Westview Press, Inc., →ISBN, page 88:
Like so many other designers, she hates being objectified, or rather adjectified, as a “woman” designer.1994, Communication Arts, page 30:
[…]; he was already feeling adjectified to death.2001, Joel Herscovitch, “Prime Time (Return of the Vampire)”, in Back to the Garden, Xlibris, pages 298–299: