Word.ws English Dictionary

Tarbellize

Tarbellize verb: to criticize through investigatory journalism.

Verb

Tarbellize (third-person singular simple present Tarbellizes, present participle Tarbellizing, simple past and past participle Tarbellized)

  1. (US, archaic, obsolete, transitive) To criticize through investigatory journalism.
    • The agencies of the Central States have been "Tarbellized" this month. Now watch the returns.1903, The Equitable News: An Agents' Journal
    • At this stage we must take a risk; / We may full soon be Tarbellized, / Or through exposures blunt and brisk / Be quite completely Lawsonized.1906, Life

Forms of Tarbellize

third-person singular presentTarbellizes
present participleTarbellizing
past participleTarbellized
pastTarbellized

Origin of Tarbellize

From Tarbell + -ize, after Ida Tarbell, author of The History of the Standard Oil Company, a book that heavily criticized John D. Rockefeller and his monopolistic practices.

Questions about Tarbellize

What does Tarbellize mean?
Tarbellize means to criticize through investigatory journalism.
What part of speech is Tarbellize?
Tarbellize is a verb.
What is the past tense of Tarbellize?
The past tense of Tarbellize is Tarbellized.

Words near Tarbellize in the dictionary

  1. tarballs
  2. Tarban
  3. Tarbat
  4. Tarbat Ness
  5. Tarbell
  6. Tarbellize
  7. Tarbellized
  8. Tarbellizes
  9. Tarbellizing
  10. Tarbells
  11. Tarbert

Source and license

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