| 释义 |
vulgarize, v.|ˈvʌlgəraɪz|
[f. vulgar a. + -ize, perh. after med.L. vulgarizare (1305), F. vulgariser (16th cent. and mod.), Sp. vulgarizar, Pg. -isar, It. volgarizzare.]
1. intr. To act in a vulgar manner; to become vulgar.
1605Daniel Epist. Lady Anne Clifford vi, Honour..cannot stray and breake abroade Into the priuate wayes of carelesnesse; Nor euer may descend to vulgarize, Or be below the sphere of her abode. 1846Mrs. Gore Eng. Char. (1852) 96 A man having too much regard for his complexion to infringe upon the wine-cellar, and too much interest in his slimness to vulgarise on ale.
2. trans. To make common or popular; to reduce to the level of something usual or ordinary.
1709T. Robinson Vind. Mosaick Syst. Introd. 6 To Vulgarize and to Allegorize the Scripture, are equally of evil Consequence to Religion. 1786Sir J. Reynolds Disc. xiii. Wks. 1797 I. 273 To find proper foundations for science is neither to narrow or to vulgarise it. 1839Bailey Festus 145 The great bards..Men who have vulgarized sublimity, And bought up truth for the nations. 1870Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 154 The invention of printing, without yet vulgarizing letters, had made the thought and history of the entire past contemporaneous. 1872Browning Fifine lxxv, Change yourself, dissimulate the thought And vulgarize the word.
3. To make vulgar or commonplace; to debase, degrade.
1756F. Brooke Old Maid No. 32. 262 Its being the religion of the whole nation has made it too common, and, if I may be allowed the expression, vulgarized it. a1774Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) II. 29 It would vilify, and, I may say, vulgarize the Almighty, to imagine Him..engaged among the trifling scenes that occupy our notice. 1820Hazlitt Table-t. (1824) II. i. 7 They vulgarise and degrade whatever is interesting or sacred to the mind. a1821V. Knox Winter Even. xxxviii. Wks. 1824 II. 478 Learning sullied with pedantry, exhortation vulgarized by low wit. a1853Robertson Lect., Wordsw. (1858) 244 It seemed as if all that noise was vulgarizing the poet. 1871L. Stephen Playgr. Eur. (1894) ii. 64 Some..peak, not yet vulgarised by associations with guides and picnics.
b. absol. To cause or produce vulgarity.
1849C. Brontë Shirley vi, Family jarring vulgarizes—family union elevates.
Hence ˈvulgarized ppl. a.; ˈvulgarizer, one who vulgarizes or makes popular; ˈvulgarizing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1847De Quincey in ‘H. A. Page’ Life (1877) I. xv. 349 The absolute realities of *vulgarised life as it exists in plebeian ranks amongst our countrymen. 1884Harper's Mag. Mar. 568/2 The vulgarized phrase, a gentleman.
1899Athenæum 28 Jan. 105/3 He [Albert Smith] was the *vulgarizer of Switzerland.
1831Mrs. Hemans in Chorley Mem. (1836) II. 236 Braham's singing was not equal to the instrumental part, but he did not disfigure it by his customary and *vulgarizing graces. 1871L. Stephen Playgr. Eur. (1894) xii. 280 The eternal mountains..never recall..the vulgarising association of old days.
1946J. S. Huxley Unesco ii. 60 They [sc. press and radio] have already rendered many disservices—in the *vulgarising of taste, in the debasement of intellectual standards. |