pragmatise

English

Verb

pragmatise (third-person singular simple present pragmatises, present participle pragmatising, simple past and past participle pragmatised)

Alternative form of pragmatize
1. To make real.
  - 1856, Richard Holt Hutton, Walter Bagehot, The National Review - Volume 2‎^[1], page 163:
    He does not, as was formerly the fashion, pragmatise mythology, i.e. simply drop the supernatural elements, and take the residuum as history; nor, on the other hand, reject it altogether, as utterly useless for historical purposes; but having endeavoured to catch the traditional belief, the impregnating idea which is at work under the ever-changing forms of fable, he uses it with cautious, sagacity as a clue for tracing the course of primeval settlements, and recovering the lost thread of ethnological affinities.
  - 2007, Russell Sharrock, Spiritual Warfare: A Struggle for Truth, →ISBN, page 309:
    Warfare is said to engage in detailed study of the enemy and his system of operation to identify the chinks in his armour, and then to formulate a strategem to defeat him. Thus it is attempting to pragmatise spiritual warfare.
  - 2010, S.S. Bhatti, Songs of the Soul, →ISBN, page 243:
    In vain are they trying now to pragmatise it; In vain because, in so doing, the flame dies away.
2. To focus on the material or practical.
  - 1950, Trades Union Congress, Report of Proceedings at the Annual Trades Union Congress:
    A Movement like ours, so apt to pragmatise, developed its policy in a practical way.
  - 1970 October, Edward A. Fletcher, “Fluorocarbon Combustion, Fluorine Supported Combustion Kinetics?”, in The Mechanisms of Pyrolysis, Oxidation, And Buring of Organic Materials, Proceedings of the 4th Materials Research Symposium:
    This uncomfortable state of affairs exists because many models that are, at best, heuristic work quite well, and in science and technology we frequently pragmatise: If it works it must be right.
  - 1987, Rama Mehta, Socio-legal status of women in India, page 66:
    We do not mean to universalise or dogmatise that men and women are equal in all occupations and all situations and do not exclude the need to pragmatise where the requirements of particular employment, the sensitivities of sex or the peculiarity of societal sectors or the handicaps of either sex may compel selectivity.