brutalize, v.
(ˈbruːtəlaɪz)
[f. brutal a. + -ize.]
1. intr. To live or become like a brute.
| 1716 Addison Freeholder No. 5 He mixed..with his countrymen, brutalized with them in their habit and manners. 1749 Walpole Lett. H. Mann (1834) II. ccviii. 303 If possible we brutalize more and more. 1810 Coleridge Friend (1865) 152 To discuss on how much a person may vegetate or brutalize in the back settlements of the republic. a 1859 De Quincey Ceylon Wks. XII. 26 Man does not brutalize, by possibility, in pure insulation. |
2. trans. To render brutal or inhuman; to imbue with a brutal nature.
| a 1704 T. Brown To Lumenissa 113 Which..Were but at once to Brutalize Mankind. 1833 H. Martineau Fr. Wines & Pol. iv. 54 The efforts that were made to infatuate and brutalize the people. 1885 A. J. C. Hare Russia i. 23 That which does most to brutalize the lower orders in Russia is their constant habit of intemperance. |
3. To treat as a brute, or brutally.
| 1879 Stevenson Trav. Cevennes 15 God forbid..that I should brutalise this innocent creature. 1885 Mrs. E. Lynn Linton Chr. Kirkland I. 274 He would have died outright had he been brutalized in any way. |
Hence ˈbrutalized, ˈbrutalizing ppl. adjs.
| 1800 Southey Lett. (1856) I. 106 The bloody and brutalising spirit of Popery. 1803 Bristed Pedest. Tour I. 455 The coarse and brutalized indulgences of mere unalloyed sensuality. 1844 S. St. John Hayti v. 183 The masses [in Hayti] are given up to this brutalising [Vaudoux] worship. |