dehumanize
verbUK /diːˈhjuːmənaɪz/
Etymology From de- + humanize.
1
To take away humanity; to remove or deny human qualities, characteristics, or attributes; to impersonalize.
- 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.1919, James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics: Picts-Sacraments, page 535:
- Yet we are dismayed by the failures and forces that dehumanize and defeat the finest dreams and plans of this generation.1968, Stewart L. Udall, 1976: Agenda for Tomorrow, page 3:
4 more examples
- 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?1999, Ursula E. Beitter, The New Europe at the Crossroads, page 129:
- 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.2003, Stephen P. Garvey, editor, Beyond Repair? America's Death Penalty, →ISBN, page 141:
- A Melbourne woman says she feels “dehumanised” after being filmed without consent for a “random act of kindness” TikTok that went viral.2022 July 14, Rafqa Touma, “Melbourne woman ‘dehumanised’ by viral TikTok filmed without her consent”, in The Guardian:
- 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.2023 November 2, David Brooks, “How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2023:
- Antonyms
- humanize
- Derived terms
- dehumanization, dehumanizer, undehumanized
- Related terms
- dewomanize