Definitions

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

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of bowdlerize.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Of course, many people are aware of Shakespeare's crudity (certainly Thomas Bowdler was, when he presented his expurgated version of Shakespeare's plays in the 19th century-hence the word bowdlerized).

    The Dirt On Shakespeare 2008

  • Those weren't the first times I "bowdlerized" -- some might say, butchered -- a classic text the term comes from the knuckleheaded 19th century Shakespearian censor Thomas Bowdler.

    Trey Ellis: Censoring Huck Ain't So Simple Trey Ellis 2011

  • Those weren't the first times I "bowdlerized" -- some might say, butchered -- a classic text the term comes from the knuckleheaded 19th century Shakespearian censor Thomas Bowdler.

    Trey Ellis: Censoring Huck Ain't So Simple Trey Ellis 2011

  • Tristero doesn't appear to know what libertarianism is, having confused it with some kind of bowdlerized anarchism.

    Who Is IOZ? 2010

  • "bowdlerized," but they still remained as excruciatingly funny as only French pieces can be.

    The Days Before Yesterday Frederick Spencer Hamilton 1892

  • Thinking to sink HMS Telegraph, the House of Commons this morning fired off an Exocet missile in the form of publishing its own thoroughly bowdlerized version of their expenses.

    Expenses: The Commons Exocets Itself 2009

  • The Nutcracker — but not any of the chopped-down, bowdlerized, amputated versions pretending to be the real story.

    In the dead of winter « 2009

  • The censorship requirements of 1973 network television further bowdlerized the material.

    Current Movie Reviews, Independent Movies - Film Threat 2010

  • Did its reception shatter his confidence, leaving him unable to finish the other novels he worked on intermittently over his last years: "Islands in the Stream" and "The Garden of Eden" both published posthumously in heavily edited, and perhaps bowdlerized, editions?

    The Slow Crack-Up Allan Massie 2011

  • Thinking to sink HMS Telegraph, the House of Commons this morning fired off an Exocet missile in the form of publishing its own thoroughly bowdlerized version of their expenses.

    Archive 2009-06-14 2009

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