heroify
verbEtymology From hero + -ify.
1
To raise someone to the status of a hero by overlooking the person's flaws.
- In writing about important historical figures, one must be careful not to heroify them.
- What were the far-off natives of the Rocky Mountains doing that this restless, reckless, blood-thirsty, and cruel Frenchman should be permitted to kill them? [...] The vilest agents were permitted to employ the vilest means; and this French butcher finds among our first writers a man to heroify him and to set up his dastardly deeds as models for the young.1886, Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of the Northwest Coast:
- Related terms
- heroification