Word.ws English Dictionary

pathologize

pathologize verb: to characterize as a pathology or disease; to characterize (a person) as suffering from a disease.

Verb

pathologize (third-person singular simple present pathologizes, present participle pathologizing, simple past and past participle pathologized)

  1. (transitive) To characterize as a pathology or disease; to characterize (a person) as suffering from a disease.
    • Near-synonym: medicalize
    • Some childhood behavior has been pathologized as attention-deficit disorder.
    Synonyms:
    medicalize

Examples of pathologize in a sentence

  • Many pain patients have had doctors who pathologized them, told them their pain was unreal.2001 December 16, Melanie Thernstrom, “Pain, the Disease”, in The New York Times, retrieved 12 Jul 2011:
  • To pathologize China's industries as corrupt not only reeks of centuries-old Yellow Peril rhetoric but also fails to acknowledge the shortcomings of transnational regulations.2007 July 23, Rachel Endo, “Inbox”, in Time:

Synonyms of pathologize

Forms of pathologize

third-person singular presentpathologizes
present participlepathologizing
past participlepathologized
pastpathologized
alternative formpathologise

Origin of pathologize

From pathology + -ize.

Words formed from pathologize

Questions about pathologize

What does pathologize mean?
Pathologize means to characterize as a pathology or disease; to characterize (a person) as suffering from a disease.
How do you use pathologize in a sentence?
Many pain patients have had doctors who pathologized them, told them their pain was unreal.
What part of speech is pathologize?
Pathologize is a verb.
What is the past tense of pathologize?
The past tense of pathologize is pathologized.

Words near pathologize in the dictionary

  1. pathologising
  2. pathologist
  3. pathologists
  4. pathologization
  5. pathologizations
  6. pathologize
  7. pathologized
  8. pathologizes
  9. pathologizing
  10. pathology
  11. pathomania

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pathologize (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: “pathologize.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pathologize. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.