Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Denationalize \De*na"tion*al*ize\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Denationalized; p. pr. & vb. n. Denationalizing.] [Cf. F. d['e]nationaliser.]
-
To divest or deprive of national character or rights.
Bonaparte's decree denationalizes, as he calls it, all ships that have touched at a British port.
--Cobbett.An expatriated, denationalized race.
--G. Eliot. -
to change (something, as an industry or business) from state to private ownership or control; as, the British denationalization of steel.
Syn: privatize, denationalise.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1807, "to deprive of nationality," from French dénationaliser (said in contemporary English publications to have been coined by Napoleon Buonaparte; denapoleonize was coined shortly thereafter); see de- + nationalize. Meaning "to transfer from national to private ownership" recorded from 1921. Related: Denationalized; denationalization.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context transitive English) To transfer the control and ownership of an industry from government to private hands; to privatize. 2 (context transitive English) To strip of nationhood; to cease to recognise, or allow to exist, as a nation.
WordNet
v. put under private control or ownership; "The steel industry was denationalized" [syn: denationalise] [ant: nationalize, nationalize]
Usage examples of "denationalize".
A State cannot denationalize a foreign subject who has not complied with federal naturalization law and constitute him a citizen of the United States, or of the State, so as to deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction over a controversy between him and a citizen of a State.
New Conservatives will soon have to order an intervention as the private and denationalized companies begin to falter, bringing them back into the government fold.
December 17, 1807, Napoleon retorted by the Milan decree, which declared denationalized and subject to capture and condemnation every vessel, to whatsoever nation belonging, which should have submitted to search by an English ship, or should be on a voyage to England, or should have paid any tax to the English government.
This, however, is true: The negro population, in common with all others, has ground for just and continuing complaint against the legislation of Congress by which a portion of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands have been denationalized on account of race or color, or on account of a condition of mental or physical inferiority.
The racial chaos in America, which, deliberately perpetuated by the distorter, delivers the American nation more securely into his hands, is only possible because of the denationalizing program for Americans.
But the German occupation and sovereignty at the present moment are denationalizing more than six million people.
Yeats find his inspiration in Ireland, overcoming, for the time, the denationalizing influences that the art of the centre must always exert.
A State cannot denationalize a foreign subject who has not complied with federal naturalization law and constitute him a citizen of the United States, or of the State, so as to deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction over a controversy between him and a citizen of a State.
He spoke in a smooth denationalized English, which, like the look in his long-lashed eyes and the promptness of his charming smile, suggested a long training in all the arts of expediency.
Susy had always lived among people so denationalized that those one took for Russians generally turned out to be American, and those one was inclined to ascribe to New York proved to have originated in Rome or Bucharest.