punctualizing

Verb

punctualize (third-person singular simple present punctualizes, present participle punctualizing, simple past and past participle punctualized)

1. To render as, or turn into, a point; (specifically, sociology) to consider a conceptual or social network as a single point-like entity or “black box”.
   • One of the complaints sometimes made concerning phenomenology is that it seems to substantialize the self, that it makes the ego into a kind of fixed point that escapes its own history […] But phenomenology does not punctualize the self […]2000, Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, →ISBN, page 127
2. To express an action as happening at a specific moment.
   • Among indices of the first type, we find not only adverbs like hier ‘yesterday’, but also a variety of other expressions that serve to punctualize or indicate a specific time.1980, Gillian Sankoff, The Social Life of Language, →ISBN, page 318