demonise
demonise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of demonize.
Meaning of demonize
Verb
demonize (third-person singular simple present demonizes, present participle demonizing, simple past and past participle demonized)
- To turn into a demon.
- To describe or represent as evil or diabolic, usually falsely.
- President Trump has seized on the response in the streets to police brutality against Black men and women to bolster his re-election campaign, employing provocative and sometimes incendiary language and images to incite his followers, demonize his opponents or both.2020 September 1, Peter Baker, “Trump has a long history of language that incites and demonizes.”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 08 Sep 2020
- Synonyms:
- monster, monsterize, vilify, villainize, assassinate, asperse, backbite, badmouth, befoul, belibel
Forms of demonise
| third-person singular present | demonises |
|---|---|
| present participle | demonising |
| past participle | demonised |
| past | demonised |
Origin of demonise
From demon + -ise.
Words formed from demonise
Questions about demonise
- What is demonise the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of?
- Demonise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of demonize.
Words near demonise in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: demonise (page history and authors); demonize (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-demonise.wav.
Cite this entry: “demonise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/demonise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.