Word.ws English Dictionary

bowdlerized

bowdlerized is the simple past and past participle of bowdlerize.

Meaning of bowdlerize

Verb

bowdlerize (third-person singular simple present bowdlerizes, present participle bowdlerizing, simple past and past participle bowdlerized)

  1. (transitive) To remove or alter those parts of a text considered offensive, vulgar, or otherwise unseemly.
    • The bowdlerized version of the novel, while free of vulgarity, was also free of flavor.

Adjective

bowdlerized (comparative more bowdlerized, superlative most bowdlerized)

  1. Expurgated, especially in a comprehensive way (such as systematically throughout an entire work).
    • a bowdlerized edition of Shakespeare’s plays

Verb capitalized: Bowdlerized

Bowdlerized

  1. (participle, past) simple past and past participle of Bowdlerize

Forms of bowdlerized

comparativemore bowdlerized
superlativemost bowdlerized

Words formed from bowdlerized

Questions about bowdlerized

What does bowdlerized mean?
Bowdlerized means expurgated, especially in a comprehensive way (such as systematically throughout an entire work).
What is bowdlerized the simple past and past participle of?
Bowdlerized is the simple past and past participle of bowdlerize.
What part of speech is bowdlerized?
Bowdlerized can be an adjective or a verb.

Words near bowdlerized in the dictionary

  1. bowdlerism
  2. bowdlerisms
  3. bowdlerization
  4. bowdlerizations
  5. bowdlerize
  6. bowdlerized
  7. bowdlerizer
  8. bowdlerizers
  9. bowdlerizes
  10. bowdlerizing
  11. Bowdoin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bowdlerized (page history and authors); Bowdlerized (page history and authors); bowdlerize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bowdlerized.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bowdlerized. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.