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Glite Dictionary
🛂 To remove citizenship 🧪 To make unnatural
to denaturalize

to denaturalize

9.8
To take away a person's citizenship by law
  • verb
  • /ˌdiːˈnætʃərəˌlaɪz/
  • Specialized
translation icon : desnaturalizar
  • As soon as a national identity appears historically, that is, and even before a national canon may have been codified, local literature is at work denaturalizing any such identity, exposing such a literary canon as an ideological construction, and providing the local virus that will weaken that construction from within.

Could you lose constitutional rights by being denaturalized?

Examples

  • After the investigation, he faced the possibility of being denaturalized due to his fraudulent application.

  • The government decided to denaturalize individuals who had committed serious crimes against the state.

  • The new law allows authorities to denaturalize those who lie on their citizenship applications.

Synonyms

to disenfranchise
vsto denaturalize
  • Formal
43 8.8

To take away a person's right to vote or other citizenship rights

often does this through a formal legal process removing citizenship rights
to disfranchise
vsto denaturalize
  • Formal
1 9.0

To take away someone's right to vote or other legal rights

focuses specifically on removing citizenship rights by law
to disentitle
vsto denaturalize
  • Formal
8.1

To take away someone's right or claim to something

applies mainly to loss of citizenship rights and duties by legal process

Antonyms

to naturalize
  • Formal
11 6.0

To make someone a citizen of another country

Surface Forms

denaturalize infinitive
denaturalized past
denaturalized past participle
denaturalizing present participle
denaturalizes third person singular

Morphology

denaturalize = naturalize (opaque) = de + natural + ize

Given the legal-citizenship sense of 'naturalize', adding 'de-' straightforwardly gives the reverse meaning.

Etymology

Denaturalize uses the prefix de- meaning 'remove' and the verb naturalize, which means 'to make someone a citizen'. So, to denaturalize someone is to 'take away' their citizenship and the rights that come with it.