pragmatize

Verb

pragmatize (third-person singular simple present pragmatizes, present participle pragmatizing, simple past and past participle pragmatized)

1. (intransitive) To consider, represent, or embody (something unreal) as fact; to materialize.
   • One of the miraculous passages in the life of Mohammed himself is traced plausibly by Sprenger to such a pragmatized metaphor.1871, Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture
   • Anglophiles hoping to pragmatize Mexican culture along the lines of that of the United States, they regarded central and southern Mexico as the sick and lethargic consequence of Spanish oppression and Catholic obscurantism.2006, Mary K. Vaughan, Stephen E. Lewis, The Eagle and the Virgin
2. (intransitive) To behave in a pragmatic manner; to focus on the material or practical rather than abstractions.
   • They are generically different ; they preach where they ought to worship, they pragmatize where they ought to pray, they discourse where they ought to send up the “Glory.”1856, The Reformed Church Review - Volume 8, page 322
   • If he be a rationalist he may theorize. If he be a man of the world he may pragmatize.1939, Austen Kennedy De Blois, Donald Rex Gorham, Christian Religious Education: Principles and Practice, page 195