Procrustean
- adjective
- /prəˈkrʌstɪn/
- NSFW
:
procrustiano
- His procrustean methods of management left no room for creativity or personal expression among his team.
- a Procrustean bed
Examples
-
The public school system, "with its long hours and its procrustean methods of forcing all children, regardless of physical and mental ability, through the same processes," imposed a virtual tyranny on grade-school children.
Academic text (1996) -
Many companies adopt procrustean policies that overlook individual employee circumstances in the name of efficiency.
-
It's far from perfect or clear, but it's by no means arbitrary in some kind of Procrustean sense.
Blog text (15) -
This is a Procrustean bed a firm can extricate itself from, if at all, only with much difficulty.
Academic text (1993) -
This puts him at the furthest remove from the temptation to do violence to texts by stretching them on a Procrustean bed of theory.
Academic text (1996) -
The 60-90-day period forces the rhythm of combat into a procrustean mode that may not be warranted by real-world events.
Academic text (1991) -
Accounting research will become even more cloistered, provincial, procrustean, and, most importantly, irrelevant if we continue down the path of failing to debate the critical academic and professional issues of contemporary accounting.
Academic text (2004) -
And even in the areas where they seemed strongest, they were reductionist, constrictive of the totality by ignoring and omitting what did not fit their Procrustean bed.
Academic text (1991) -
John Finnis forces Newman’s thought into this procrustean bed without relating that letter to the larger corpus of Newman’s writings.
Academic text (1992) -
The education system's procrustean approach treats all students the same, ignoring their unique needs.
Synonyms
3
7.8
Having a serious, strict look that shows little warmth
Antonyms
Compounds
- Formal
A strict rule applied the same to everyone that ignores personal differences
How Strict
Surface Forms
Morphology
Procrustean = Procrustes (opaque) = Procrustes + ean
Formed from the mythological name 'Procrustes' plus the adjective suffix '-ean'; the meaning relies on knowledge of the myth and is not deducible by learners from the parts.
Etymology
Procrustean comes from the Greek myth about Procrustes, a robber who forced people onto his 'bed' and made them fit it by 'stretching' or 'cutting' them. So a Procrustean rule or plan forces everyone into the 'same' shape, ignoring natural differences and often acting in a cruel or unfair way.