Dictionary

decontextualize en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /diːkənˈtɛkstʃəlaɪ̯z/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *de Proto-Indo-European *-h₁ Proto-Indo-European *déh₁ Proto-Italic *dē Latin dē Latin dē-der. English de- English context English -ual English contextual Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)bor. Late Latin -izōder. Middle French -iserbor. Middle English -isen English -ize English contextualize English decontextualize From de- + contextualize.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To divest of context.
   • In the early years of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government tried to control publishers through punitive policies, and then, as they were sure of having purged the publishing sector, gradually left it to its own devices. At first, fearing the repressive state apparatus, the author, the publisher and the audience turned to uncritical, mass-market books. Gradually, there was born an audience that preferred simple, ahistorical, and decontextualized narratives to socio-historical complexities and contradictions. Later, as the political atmosphere gradually opened up, the audiences raised in that historical timeframe remained the audience of the same uncritical works. 2019 June 27, Rasoul Mohsenzadeh, Mohammad Mostafavi Rad, “Dynamic History of Iranian Book Publishing in Political and Social Settings”, in Publishing Research Quarterly, volume 35, →DOI, page 514 of 500–516:
   • Quantification (or statisticalization) is a set of scientific practices that transforms text statements into numerical ones, depersonalizing and decontextualizing them[…] 2008, Susan Greenhalgh, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China, page 109:

Forms

Antonyms

contextualize

Deriveds

decontextualizable

Relateds

contextomy

Synonyms

take out of context