The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bowdlerize \Bowd"ler*ize\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bowdlerized; p. pr. & vb. n. Bowdlerizing.] [After Dr. Thomas Bowdler, an English physician, who published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare in 1818.] To expurgate, as a book, by omitting or modifying the parts considered offensive; to remove morally objectionable parts; -- said of literary texts.
Syn: bowdlerise, expurgate, shorten, cut.
It is a grave defect in the splendid tale of Tom
Jones . . . that a Bowdlerized version of it would
be hardly intelligible as a tale.
--F. Harrison.
[1913 Webster] -- Bowd`ler*i*za"tion, n. --
Bowd"ler*ism, n.
Wiktionary
vb. (en-past of: bowdlerize)
Usage examples of "bowdlerized".
The news was too important, the need for a prompt and appropriate response too critical, for the relevant information to wend its way to the Chief Executive by means of the usual ruthlessly distilled and bowdlerized written report.
The only thing he bowdlerized was the ballad, and that only because his publisher was prudish.
The diagnosis, delivered over the phone to a largely uncomprehending Milton and then bowdlerized by him for Tessie’s benefit, amounted to a vague concern about the formation of my urinary tract along with a possible hormonal deficiency.
They’d acted together, in the last of Adelia’s garden theatricals—he’d been Ferdinand, she Miranda, in a bowdlerized version ofThe Tempest in which both sex and Caliban had been minimized.
Burmese Days (published in America before being published in a slightly bowdlerized form in England, 1934).