The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bastardize \Bas"tard*ize\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bastardized (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Bastardizing.]
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To make or prove to be a bastard; to stigmatize as a bastard; to declare or decide legally to be illegitimate.
The law is so indulgent as not to bastardize the child, if born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock.
--Blackstone. To beget out of wedlock. [R.]
--Shak.-
to change something (for example, art forms) so that its value declines; to debase.
Syn: bastardise.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1610s, "to identify as a bastard," from bastard (q.v.) + -ize. The figurative sense, "to make degenerate, debase" is earlier (1580s), probably because bastard also was serving as a verb meaning "to declare illegitimate" (1540s). Related: Bastardized; bastardizing; bastardization.\n
Wiktionary
alt. 1 To claim or demonstrate that someone is a bastard, or illegitimate. 2 To reduce from a higher to a lower state; to debase. 3 To introduce debased elements into. 4 To beget out of wedlock. vb. 1 To claim or demonstrate that someone is a bastard, or illegitimate. 2 To reduce from a higher to a lower state; to debase. 3 To introduce debased elements into. 4 To beget out of wedlock.
WordNet
v. change something so that its value declines; for example, art forms [syn: bastardise]
declare a child to be illegitimate [syn: bastardise]
Usage examples of "bastardize".
Spotmaster, and he built and blended and sweetened the hell out of that laugh track till even I chuckled at moronic material Bill Tidy had bastardized to a level that only the Jukes and Kallikaks could have found uproarious.
Hutu had the Watutsi, or had bastardized the doctrine of Westminster government by discarding the checks and balances that make the system equitable, and had used their superior numbers to place their erstwhile masters into a position of political subjugation, as the Kikuyu had the Masai.
Only then did Alain realize that the Eika prince had counted one, two, three in a bastardized form of the language spoken in Salia.
The tall, sad-eyed man who spoke gently, in bastardized British-out-of-the-Balkans, and held him under the barrel of a thick, powerful weapon.
Brown had no idea whether this was pure French or bastardized French or even the patois some of them spoke, which not even a Parisian could understand.
The land up there had once been owned by a patroon named Ryerhurt, and it had been called Ryerhurt’s Farms, which eventually became abbreviated and bastardized to Riverhead.
And color, too, in the language of the streets, the profanity interlaced with the pseudo-musical jargon, the English of the underprivileged, and the bastardized Spanish, the Jewish peddler shouting his wares with a heavy Yiddish accent, the woman on the street corner wailing psalms to the indifferent blue sky of April.
He spoke a city dialect, which had been bastardized with human Ragamoll, but they could still understand each other.
The sky was hard and laser-bright, with fluffball clouds herding obedient shadows beneath them—what the old hands called 'solly sombry' in bastardized Spanish.
If the squids keep screwing with your racial DNA, how long before you become more bastardized Human than honest Ashregan?
It's a bastardized way of doing it, but with California out of commission we don't-- The transmission halted in a loud, piercing squeal that caused everyone listening in to rip their earsets away from their heads.
I'd swear I could turn a ninety-degree corner with one if I wanted, even with this bastardized remote-control relay setup.
They are emasculating our schools and bastardizing our nin-nyversities.
The only Drugs that werent bastardizing my dying moments were Wildman, who was passed out cold, and Jeff the Wife-beater, who was still busy beating his wife at an impressive meter.
They were destined for the Chinatrade: the emperor had decreed that no black slaves could be importedwho were capable of bastardizing the pure bloodline of his people.