bastardize

English

Mary I of England, who was bastardized by her father Henry VIII

Alternative forms

• bastardise

Etymology

bastard +‎ -ize

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbæstɚdaɪz/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Verb

bastardize (third-person singular simple present bastardizes, present participle bastardizing, simple past and past participle bastardized)

1. To claim or demonstrate that someone is a bastard, or illegitimate.
   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

     Our law is so indulgent as not to bastardize the child, if it be born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock.

2. To reduce from a higher to a lower state, such as by removing refined elements or introducing debased elements; to debase.

   The simplified word processor is a less-functional, bastardized version of the full program.

   • 2017, Douglas Charles Kane, Beren and Lúthien (2017) by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, in Journal of Tolkien Research, Volume 4, Issue 2, Article 5,

     The third potential audience is the general public at large, who either never has read any of Tolkien’s books or perhaps read The Lord of the Rings and/or The Hobbit long ago, but whose knowledge about Tolkien’s created secondary universe comes, if at all, mostly from seeing Peter Jackson’s bastardized adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and/or The Hobbit.

3. To beget out of wedlock.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, King Lear, act 1, scene 2, lines 130–132:

     I should / have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the / firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

Synonyms

• (introduce debased elements into, to degrade): mongrelize, butcher, debase