continentalize

English

Alternative forms

• continentalise

Etymology

From continental +‎ -ize.

Verb

continentalize (third-person singular simple present continentalizes, present participle continentalizing, simple past and past participle continentalized)

1. To broaden or narrow in scope or focus so that the domain becomes the continent.
   • 1900, American Education - Volume 3, page 205:

     He who would continentalize our education would continentalize our history. I do not think that we shall be continentalized; I think that the movement has failed.

   • 1925, Committee on Cooperation in Latin America, Christian Work in South America:

     Used in connection with Christianity, as in the title of a well-known book, Pan-Americanism in Its Religious Aspect, it provincializes, or at best, continentalizes what is by nature universal.

   • 1938, Norman Wengert, The Good Neighbor Policy and Latin America, page 82:

     In defense of the treaties, it may be stated that they will continentalize the Monroe doctrine, that in a case like that cited above, all the Americas will unite to drive out the intruder.

   • 1972, H. Viv Nelles, Abraham Rotstein, George Woodcock, Nationalism Or Local Control: Responses to George Woodcock:

     To continentalize our economies and cultures now would be a victory for the right, for such action would only serve to strengthen the already immense power of American-owned multinational corporations on a continental basis and would shatter the existing socialist elements in our agrarian west, our trade unions and our political parties.

   • 1973, The Critical Temper, page 397:

     [Norris] was one of the least sectional of American novelists, with a vision of his native land which attached him to the movement, then under discussion to "continentalize" American literature by breaking up the parochial habits of the local colour school.

   • 1993, Samuel Humes, Managing the multinational: confronting the global-local dilemma:

     The increased continental consciousness of multinationals has pushed them to continentalize their operations; that is, rationalize manufacturing and other functions on a continental basis.

2. To spread throughout the continent.
   • 1985, TER-QUA Symposium Series - Volume 1, page 98:

     Such seawater-displacing ice sheets would contibute to a global O enrichment in the oceans and would further continentalize the climates of northern Europe, Asia, and North America but would not contribute significantly to reducing eustatic sea level.

   • 1992, Analele Științifice:

     On the other hand, during summer the air circulation is intensified by the activity of the Azoric anticyclone which brings to our country important quantities of humid air which, however, continentalizes gradually towards east.

   • 2009, The Petroleum Geology and Resources of Vietnam, page 495:

     Unlike those of the Paleozoic, sedimentary and volcanic formations of the Mesozoic usually change quite rapidly in terms of composition and litho-facies with small and narrow distribution areas and tend to continentalize quickly with time (Table 15.4).

3. To make or become more culturally European.
   • 1860, The North British Review - Volume 33, page 73:

     A continentalized Scotchman is a character with whom every one who has resided on the Continent is familiar; a continentalized Englishman, if not an unknown, is a very unusual phenomenon.

   • 1890, Thomas Greenwood, Public Libraries:

     The one main reason why many are so much opposed to the Sunday opening of Museums is that it may be the getting in of the thin end of the wedge to continentalize our Sunday.

   • 1892, The Omaha Clinic - Volume 5, page 214:

     These words can be pronounced either hard or soft , i . e . , we may yet anglicize them or continentalize them .

   • 2015, Massimo Montanari, Medieval Tastes: Food, Cooking, and the Table, page 57:

     It was like a comprehensive displacement to the north, the “continentalizing” of the Mediterranean alimentary model, corresponding to analogous political and institutional events.

4. To visit Europe.
   • 1882, Charles James Lever, The Dodd family abroad. The confessions of Con Cregan, page 32:

     So far, therefore, as economy goes, this continentalizing has not succeeded up to this. Instead of living rent free at Dodsborough, with our own mutton and turnips, the ducks and peas, that cost us, I may say, nothing, here we are, keeping up the price of foreign markets, and feeding the foreigners at the expense of our own poor people.

   • 2008, William Wordsworth, Stephen Hebron, William Wordsworth: Selected Poems:

     This was in February — ;— now in March it came to his ears— that I wanted to get rid of my Parrots, — for which I asked £70 — so he came to me — & after sundry negociations — offered me £50 — in money — on condition that I would continentalize with him — & to pay my expenses there & back entirely, for whatever length of journey he might go to.

5. To make into a continent.
   • 1865, Sir William Howard Russell, Canada : Its Defences, Condition, and Resources, page 63:

     The river forms an island here which the ice now continentalizes.

   • 2007, F. Datini, Simonetta Cavaciocchi, Europe's economic relations with the Islamic world, 13th-18th:

     Why the lowly Urals should continentalize Europe from Asia, while the massive Himalayas should at best sub-continentalize India, is a question best answered by the cultural pretensions of Czar Peter the Great and the imperial distortions of the Victorians. Geographical science has little to do with the existence of Europe.