Dictionary

dehumanize en · VERB

Pronunciation

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

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- Latin hūmānusbor. Old French umain Middle French humainbor. Middle English humayne English human 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 humanize English dehumanize From de- + humanize.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To take away humanity; to remove or deny human qualities, characteristics, or attributes; to impersonalize.
   • And, in this country, the traditional, ingrained way to dehumanize people, to make both their pain and their individuality irrelevant, is to rely on their race. 2003, Stephen P. Garvey, editor, Beyond Repair? America's Death Penalty, →ISBN, page 141:
   • From this sort of work, we learn to have a contempt for sadism, for anything that dehumanizes, and to have compassion for the everyday people who pay the price for the designs of proud and evil men. 2023 November 2, David Brooks, “How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2023:
   • Yet we are dismayed by the failures and forces that dehumanize and defeat the finest dreams and plans of this generation. 1968, Stewart L. Udall, 1976: Agenda for Tomorrow, page 3:
   • A Melbourne woman says she feels “dehumanised” after being filmed without consent for a “random act of kindness” TikTok that went viral. 2022 July 14, Rafqa Touma, “Melbourne woman ‘dehumanised’ by viral TikTok filmed without her consent”, in The Guardian:
   • To what extent can we stop making the culture of the Other so dehumanized and Satanized as to make the Other fit to be genocidable? 1999, Ursula E. Beitter, The New Europe at the Crossroads, page 129:
   • In its consistently logical form Quietism makes communion between man and God an impossibility by annulling the distinction between them, ultimately reducing God to a vague and empty abstraction, and dehumanizing man. 1919, James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics: Picts-Sacraments, page 535:

Forms

Antonyms

humanize

Deriveds

dehumanizer · undehumanized · dehumanization

Relateds

dewomanize

Translations (52)

ru дегуманизи́ровать (to take away humanity) · fi epäinhimillistää (to take away humanity) · ru расчелове́чивать (to take away humanity) · cmn 非人化 (to take away humanity) · ru расчелове́чить (to take away humanity) · ru обесчелове́чить (to take away humanity) · vi phi nhân hoá (to take away humanity) · gl deshumanizar (to take away humanity) · sl dehumanizirati (to take away humanity) · nl ontmenselijken (to take away humanity) · cmn 獸化 /兽化 (to take away humanity) · sh dehumanizovati (to take away humanity) · be дэгуманізава́ць (to take away humanity) · pl dehumanizować (to take away humanity) · mk дехуманизи́ра (to take away humanity) · ca deshumanitzar (to take away humanity) · nl dehumaniseren (to take away humanity) · sq çnjerëzoj (to take away humanity) · cs dehumanizovat (to take away humanity) · is gera ómennskan (to take away humanity) · pl zdehumanizować (to take away humanity) · el απανθρωπεύω (to take away humanity) · bg дехуманизи́рам (to take away humanity) · de entmenschen (to take away humanity) · pt desumanizar (to take away humanity) · ru обесчелове́чивать (to take away humanity) · sv avhumanisera (to take away humanity) · sk dehumanizovať (to take away humanity) · pl odczłowieczyć (to take away humanity) · de dehumanisieren (to take away humanity) · fi eläimellistää (to take away humanity) · nb dehumanisere (to take away humanity) · es deshumanizar (to take away humanity) · fi dehumanisoida (to take away humanity) · ro dezumaniza (to take away humanity) · is gera að tilfinningalausri skepnu (to take away humanity) · sh dehumanizirati (to take away humanity) · tpi daunim (to take away humanity) · uk розлю́днювати (to take away humanity) · de entmenschlichen (to take away humanity) · fi ottaa pois ihmisarvo (to take away humanity) · sh дехуманизирати (to take away humanity) · io deshumanigar (to take away humanity) · it disumanizzare (to take away humanity) · da dehumanisere (to take away humanity) · fr déshumaniser (to take away humanity) · uk розлю́днити (to take away humanity) · pl odczłowieczać (to take away humanity) · hy ապամարդկայնացնել (to take away humanity) · uk дегуманізува́ти (to take away humanity) · sh дехуманизовати (to take away humanity) · sl razčlovečiti (to take away humanity)