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Glite Dictionary
🛂 To grant citizenship 🌱 To adapt to place 🎨 To make lifelike 🧠 To explain naturally
to naturalize

to naturalize

1 6.7
To explain something by nature or science instead of by magic
  • verb
  • /ˈnæʧərəˌlaɪz/
  • US
translation icon : naturalizar
  • The documentary naturalizes social issues by connecting them to historical events and trends.
  • naturalize social phenomena

Examples

  • In her speech, the advocate aimed to naturalize complex scientific concepts to make them accessible to a wider audience.

  • The film tries to naturalize the struggles of its characters by showing their everyday lives.

  • The colonial imagery helps to naturalize the cultural model that is essentially "sneaked" into the existing culture.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Their performance works to naturalize the racialized discourse that informs it.

    Academic text (1998)

  • If naturalized epistemology sounds like a good idea to you, this idea, naturalized philosophy of science, should too.

    Blog text (25)

  • Much of the manipulation aims to produce a seamless illusion of plausibility that naturalizes ideology as mythology.

    Academic text (2000)

  • Many scholars argue, in other words, that maternal ideology falsely naturalizes, individualizes, and decontextualizes the practice of mothering.

    Academic text (2005)

  • Sport, as a hegemonic institution, naturalizes men's power and privilege over women (Sabo & Jansen, 1992).

    Academic text (2005)

  • Legal geographers and critical legal scholars have long recognized that laws serve to naturalize the world by structuring how people think about it (Gordon 1984; Blomley 1994; Kedar 2003).

    Academic text (2011)

Synonyms

to rationalize away
vsto naturalize
  • US
1 7.9

Try to explain strange events with normal reasons to dismiss other ideas

explains by reference to natural causes without aiming to justify or dismiss alternatives
to psychologize
vsto naturalize
1 8.2

Explain someone's actions by saying their thoughts or feelings caused them

uses natural causes more broadly rather than only mental or psychological accounts
to biologize
vsto naturalize
8.0

To explain, study, or treat something using ideas about living things

refers to natural causes in general, not confined to biological explanations

How Natural

to naturalize
  • US
1 6.7
to explain
∞ 1.0
to attribute
228 3.8
to suggest
∞ 1.6

Surface Forms

naturalize infinitive
naturalized past
naturalized past participle
naturalizing present participle
naturalizes third person singular

Morphology

naturalize = natural (transparent) = nature + al + ize

Morphologically formed by adding -ize to 'natural' to mean 'render explainable in natural terms'.

Etymology

Naturalize comes from natural meaning 'of nature', so to naturalize an idea or event is to explain it by nature's causes rather than by magic, making it seem natural and understandable.