popularize, v.
(ˈpɒpjʊləraɪz)
[f. popular + -ize. So F. populariser (1798 in Dict. Acad.).]
† 1. intr. To act popularly; to court popular favour. Obs. rare—1.
| 1593 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. 111 Some Popes haue bene glad for their aduantage, to tyrannise Popularly, so he may chaunce be content for his aduauncement, to popularise tyrannically: and shall not be the first..that hath cunningly done it with a comely grace. |
2. trans. To make popular. a. To gain popular favour for; to cause to be generally known and accepted, liked, or admired.
| 1797 Earl Malmesbury Diaries & Corr. III. 512 He depended a little on the word peace to popularize him in his own country. 1835 Fraser's Mag. XII. 37 To preserve their power they must popularise themselves. 1879 Brit. & For. Evang. Rev. XXVIII. 54 These godly ballads and sacred rhymes had done their work in popularising the truth. |
b. To render democratic; to extend to the common people.
| 1831 Blackw. Mag. XXIX. 598 ‘Popularize the government’, say they: ‘reform the representation’. 1884 Manch. Exam. 26 June 5/1 Protestations of their willingness to popularise the suffrage. |
c. To present (an abstruse or technical subject) in a form popularly intelligible or attractive. Also absol.
| 1833 J. S. Mill in Monthly Repos. VII. 266 The peculiar ‘mission’ of this age..is to popularize among the many, the more immediately practical results of the thought and experience of the few. 1836 Tait's Mag. III. 80 He possesses..the power of seizing upon and popularizing the finer parts of his subject. 1850 Grote Greece ii. lxvii. VIII. 451 A powerful instrument in popularising new combinations of thought with variety and elegance of expression. 1871 Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue §654 Engaged in the diffusion of knowledge, in popularising history or science. 1916 G. B. Shaw Pygmalion 100 His [sc. Henry Sweet's] great ability as a phonetician..would have entitled him to high official recognition, and perhaps enabled him to popularize his subject, but for his Satanic contempt for all academic dignitaries and persons in general who thought more of Greek than of phonetics. 1923 Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Jan. 10/3 True-blue musicians; they knew their facts and..looked at them steadily in order to check their theories, and they did not popularize. |
d. To make (a word) generally known, spec. to use or encourage the use of (technical vocabulary) in general contexts or in everyday language.
| 1921 G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah p. xliii, Why did not Erasmus Darwin popularize the word Evolution as effectively as Charles? 1926 [implied in popularized ppl. a.]. 1965 E. Gowers Fowler's Mod. Eng. Usage (ed. 2) 461/1 Our interest in our bodies has always made us prone to popularize medical terms. |
Hence ˈpopularized ppl. a., ˈpopularizing vbl. n. Also ˈpopularizer.
| 1848 W. K. Kelly tr. L. Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. II. 523 One of the most successful popularizers of science. 1855 Milman Lat. Chr. xiv. iii. (1864) IX. 120 The popularising of religious teaching. a 1882 T. H. Green Prol. to Ethics Introd. (1883) 2 Inferences from popularised science. 1897 Daily News 23 Sept. 5/3 In these days of popularised photography. 1919 M. Beer Hist. Brit. Socialism I. i. vi. 80 Adam Smith and Abraham Tucker's populariser, Paley, either use and interpret natural law in a conservative sense or draw its social-revolutionary teeth. 1926 Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage 444/2 A few examples of these popularized technicalities may be gathered together. 1934 H. G. Wells Exper. Autobiogr. II. viii. 546 He..began writing books for the general reader and essays in natural history. He was a successful popularizer. 1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride (1967) 48/1 Professor Kinsey's book is a carte blanche for maximal genital activity. As popularized science, that is its entire drift. 1974 Nature 30 Aug. 754/1 The populariser of science, as he functions today, cannot disseminate the subtle ideas of science. 1978 Ibid. 31 Aug. 930/3 Popularisers have a duty to be scrupulous in matters of fact and clarity of presentation. |