Crossword clues for moralize
moralize
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Moralize \Mor"al*ize\ (m[o^]r"al*[imac]z), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Moralized (m[o^]r"al*[imac]zd); p. pr. & vb. n. Moralizing (m[o^]r"al*[imac]*z[i^]ng).] [Cf. F. moraliser.]
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To apply to a moral purpose; to explain in a moral sense; to draw a moral from.
This fable is moralized in a common proverb.
--L'Estrange.Did he not moralize this spectacle?
--Shak. -
To furnish with moral lessons, teachings, or examples; to lend a moral to.
While chastening thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.
--Wordsworth. -
To render moral; to correct the morals of.
It had a large share in moralizing the poor white people of the country.
--D. Ramsay. -
To give a moral quality to; to affect the moral quality of, either for better or worse.
Good and bad stars moralize not our actions.
--Sir T. Browne.
Moralize \Mor"al*ize\, v. i.
To make moral reflections; to regard acts and events as involving a moral.
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to lecture to a person in a manner asserting moral principles.
Syn: sermonize, preachify, moralise.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1400, "expound or interpret spiritual or moral significance," from Old French moraliser and directly from Late Latin moralizare, from moralis (see moral (adj.)). Related: Moralized; moralizing.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 To apply to a moral purpose; to explain in a moral sense; to draw a moral from. 2 To furnish with moral lessons, teachings, or examples; to lend a moral to. 3 To render moral; to correct the morals of. 4 To give a moral quality to; to affect the moral quality of, either for better or worse. 5 To make moral reflections; to regard acts and events as involving a moral.
WordNet
Usage examples of "moralize".
It was a meagrely plotted controversial novel wordily dealing with world politics--past, present, and pending--and she had been deeply interested last night by its discussions, especially by the profound deliverances of one Senator Chester Allaman, who had piled credible facts upon confirmed facts until he had run out of facts, after which he had dogmatized and moralized over the boundless muddle with all the assurance of the apostles of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The romantics and the modernists alike misconceived evolution in melioristic or moralizing terms.
At the very outset, indeed, the moralizing philosophy which has characterized the English from the beginning of our national history, appears in the writers of the troubled times lying between the last regnal years of Henry VIII and the first of his great daughter.
Even the innocuous nightingales were moralized, spiritualized, turned into citizens and anglicans -- and along with the nightingales, the whole of animate and inanimate Nature.
Spare aught but a dark theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize?
When thou hearest a man moralize and preach of Fate, art thou not sure that he is going to tell thee of some one of his peculiar misfortunes?
I could not avoid thinking that I had fallen in with a greatly traduced people, and I moralized not a little upon the disadvantage of having a bad name, which in this instance had given a tribe of savages, who were as pacific as so many lambkins, the reputation of a confederacy of giant-killers.
I protest that it was very dear to me, and that, at the end of a long morning devoted to my office-desk, I have often felt as if I had contributed less to the common cause than I have felt after moralizing or, if you please, sentimentalising half an hour with my friend.
It is none the worse but all the better on that account, and I cannot say that the psychologism is the worse for being frankly, however uninsistently, moralized.
In moralized bestiaries he is, of course, an allegory of the Devil, and is so used by Milton.
He disapproved of gaming, took no more than a fashionable interest in racing, chose his friends from amongst the more sedate of his contemporaries, and was prone to moralize upon such dismal subjects as the decay of modern manners, the frivolity of the younger set, and the lack of modest restraint observable in the damsels at present gracing Society.
But you and I and our kind, we ascetics and seekers and eremites -- we are not children and are not innocent and cannot be set straight by moralizing sermons.
As always, the President, once done with moralizing about man's estate, descended to practical politics.