brutalize

English

Alternative forms

• brutalise (British)

Etymology

From brutal +‎ -ize.

Pronunciation

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Verb

brutalize (third-person singular simple present brutalizes, present participle brutalizing, simple past and past participle brutalized)

1. Alternative spelling of brutalise
   • 1831 July 15, “Of the Blood”, in Western Journal of Health‎^[1], volume 4, number 1, L. B. Lincoln, page 38:

     It was reserved for Christians to torture bread, the staff of life, bread for which children in whole districts wail, bread, the gift of pasture to the poor, bread, for want of which thousands of our fellow beings annually perish by famine; it was reserved for Christians to torture the material of bread by fire, to create a chemical and maddening poison, burning up the brain and brutalizing the soul, and producing evils to humanity, in comparison of which, war, pestilence, and famine, cease to be evils.

   • 1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:

     The subconscious activities are not rationalized and humanized, they are in fact more brutalized than ever, inasmuch as under the aegis of military law and under the tacit understanding that necessity knows no law, there is no pity and no mercy in war.

Derived terms

• brutalization
• brutalizer
• rebrutalize
• unbrutalize
• unbrutalized

 

Translations

brutalise — see brutalise