to apostrophize
1
8.6
- verb
- /əˈpɑstrəˌfaɪz/
- US
- Even someone long dead can be apostrophized without departing from normative speech codes, though it may sound a bit stagy and strained: "Oh Frank, if you could have known before you died that your son would one day curse me in my own house!"
Examples
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The speaker apostrophizes the mole, which, due to its underground existence, can only be discerned through its molehills, the marks of its labor.
Academic text (2017) -
From the very start, however, the work is also apostrophized in its ideal, transhistorical aspect:
Academic text (2007) -
The episode in which the "you" protagonist apostrophizes the woman artist models such slippage.
Academic text (1994) -
From the network's headquarters, the Studio Director's first words apostrophize listeners, whom he imagines worriedly scanning their radio dials for news of war.
Academic text (2016) -
It is by no means uncommon to apostrophize the dead at a funeral—"X, we will miss you"—and the effect is anything but embarrassing.
Academic text (2002) -
A remarkable tonal shift occurs in "The Nightingale" as the speaker turns once more to address his friends after apostrophizing the bird of the title: "Farewell, O Warbler! till tomorrow eve."
Academic text (2002) -
But in fact, the man looks much odder if he apostrophizes the bus when no one is present—if he's seen talking out loud to himself.
Academic text (2002) -
It was what I thought when I stood before the "Last Supper" and heard men apostrophizing wonders, beauties, and perfections that had faded out of the picture and gone a hundred years before they were born.
Academic text (1997) -
But although this poet movingly apostrophizes the "tenebres" that may shield him from the glaring boulevard, he makes no move to address any conception or manifestation of the divine.
Academic text (1998) -
Please apostrophize the word 'it's' to show the contraction of 'it is'.
Surface Forms
Morphology
apostrophize = apostrophe (transparent) = apostrophe + ize
The verb is formed by adding the productive verb-forming suffix '-ize' to the noun 'apostrophe'; the meaning 'to mark with an apostrophe' follows directly.
Etymology
The word apostrophize comes from apostrophe, which comes from an old Greek word meaning 'turning away' and now names the small mark that shows 'missing letters' or 'possession'. So, to apostrophize is to add that apostrophe -ize in writing, in other words to mark words with an apostrophe.