impersonalizev.
/(ˌ)ɪmˈpəːsn̩əlʌɪz/, /(ˌ)ɪmˈpəːsn̩l̩ʌɪz/, /(ˌ)ɪmˈpəːsənl̩ʌɪz/, /(ˌ)ɪmˈpəːs(ə)nəlʌɪz/, U.S. /ᵻmˈpərs(ə)nəˌlaɪz/ transitive. To make (something or someone) impersonal (in various senses of the adjective); esp. to remove any personal reference or connection from (something); to cause to be lacking in personal feelings or relations.
ΚΠ
1802 J. Bentham Let. 9 Aug. in Corr. (1988) VII. 75 As to personalities, no statement of equal length was perhaps ever so compleatly impersonalized, as that given in my Evidence.
1854 Musical Times Nov. 193/2 It is an idealism, I say, thus to impersonalize this passage, which declares a truth so universal in its reception, that it needs not Church authority to enforce it.
1872 Brit. Controversialist 109 To impersonalize the personality of the Creator,..is to declare that dreams are facts.
1914 New Republic 7 Nov. 24/1 His action..was..a sort of blind resistance against the attempt of the schoolroom to impersonalize him.
1928 Times 12 Mar. 13/3 He paid a great tribute to the financial policy of M. Poincaré, whose great merit, he declared, was that he had been able to ‘impersonalize’ his great personal triumph.
1972 Acad. Managem. Jrnl. 15 481 Hierarchy compels us to impersonalize all social interaction, thus making it impossible to realize ourselves.
2000 New Scientist 15 Jan. 20/1 Technology has done much to impersonalise modern life.
Derivatives
imˌpersonaliˈzation n. the action of making something or someone impersonal; the result of this; the fact or condition of being impersonal.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > existence > materiality > immateriality > [noun] > spirituality or being incorporeal > impersonal thing or creature > rendering impersonal
impersonalization1880
1880 A. B. Grosart Occas. Issues Unique or Very Rare Bks. XII. Introd. p. vi When you try to get near either or both [sc. Shakespeare and ‘Willobie’], you have the same mysterious and baffling impersonalization of them.
1938 Jrnl. Criminal Law & Criminol. 28 870 Impersonalization plus the individuation of most prisoners makes of the penitentiary an atomized society.
2017 M2 FinancialWire (Nexis) 10 May The homey style of a bed and breakfast offers a vacation in a relaxed atmosphere without the impersonalization and stress of a hotel.
imˈpersonalized adj. that is or has been made impersonal.
ΚΠ
1880 H. Spencer Study Sociol. (ed. 9) xii. 306 Creative energy personalized, in becoming creative energy impersonalized, does not cease to be creative energy.
1950 Illustr. London News 3 June 854/2 The human representations..appear to have been done with a deliberate roughness and clumsiness, as though the human being were..an impersonalized cog in the complex organization.
2016 Sherbrooke (Quebec) Record (Nexis) 15 Sept. a7 Teachers and school leaders are trying to attend to the needs of each child, but the system is often one of impersonalized education.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2019; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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