Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To express as or in the form of an allegory.
  • intransitive verb To interpret allegorically.
  • intransitive verb To use or make allegory.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To turn into allegory; narrate in allegory; treat allegorically: as, to allegorize the history of a people.
  • To understand in an allegorical sense; interpret allegorically: as, when a passage in an author may be understood either literally or figuratively, he who gives it a figurative sense allegorizes it.
  • To use allegory: as, a man may allegorize to please his fancy.
  • Also spelled allegorise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To use allegory.
  • transitive verb To form or turn into allegory.
  • transitive verb To treat as allegorical; to understand in an allegorical sense.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Alternative spelling of allegorise.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb interpret as an allegory
  • verb make into an allegory

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Augustine's "solution" to this problem was to allegorize the living daylights out of Genesis so it would support almost any theory.

    Augustine on Creation 2009

  • Augustine's "solution" to this problem was to allegorize the living daylights out of Genesis so it would support almost any theory.

    Augustine on Creation 2009

  • Why else would Augustine go to such lengths to allegorize scripture?

    Augustine on Creation 2009

  • Why else would Augustine go to such lengths to allegorize scripture?

    Augustine on Creation 2009

  • The political edge of the film really does not extend beyond this simplicity, and as such cuts very little within the development of the story but cuts more deeply just because it now seems like the default, expected option for people to lightly allegorize the situation in Iraq into the settings for genre cinema.

    GreenCine Daily: Shorts, 5/16. 2007

  • The inclusion and portrayal of the Nigerians smacks of direct racism, and the central premise is both too different to allegorize and too allegorized.

    Top 10 SF Films of the Decade 2009

  • Pindars allegorize a division between disciplined and vulnerable bodies, true and false patriotism, manly and unmanly sentiment.

    'Manlius to Peter Pindar':Satire, Patriotism, and Masculinity in the 1790s 2006

  • In the end, it's an argument that profoundly misunderstands the role and the workings of fiction, mistaking its ability to reflect and allegorize the world for an idea that a change in the representation might change the world reflected and allegorized.

    The “Do You Know What MySpace Is?” of its Day | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources 2008

  • Nonetheless, Jewish philosophers regularly allegorize scripture and are also influenced by allegorical readings given in rabbinic and midrashic literature (Shatz, 2003).

    Literary Forms of Medieval Philosophy Sweeney, Eileen 2008

  • Did not Jesus allegorize that we are sent as sheep among wolves and so be as shrewd as snake and as innocent as dove - Matthew 10: 5-16.

    Is there room in Christianity for other beliefs? 2008

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