| 释义 |
villainize, v.|ˈvɪlənaɪz|
Also 7–8 villanize, 9 villainise.
[f. villain n.]
1. trans. To render villainous; to debase or degrade.
1623tr. Favine's Theat. Hon. iii. xii. 487 To blame or abuse Ladies..is..for a man to villanize and shame him⁓selfe. 1700Dryden Wife of Bath's T. 405 Were Virtue by Descent, a noble Name Could never villanize his Father's Fame. 1745Law Consid. State World iii. 245 That those Writings which villanize Mankind have a pernicious tendency towards propagating and protecting Villany.
2. To treat or revile as a villain.
Cf. villainizer below.
1857Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. II. 437 Here in Rouen had he been villainized, disgraced, hooted, imprisoned, bullied, degraded.
3. intr. To play the villain.
1882Echo 11 Feb. 3 Let us hope that..these gentlemen [sc. actors], whose mission it is to dabble in crime.., will in future ‘villainise’ no more.
Hence ˈvillainizing vbl. n. Also ˈvillainizer, one who reviles or defames.
1599Sandys Europæ Spec. (1605) P iij b, What renouncers of God, blasphemers of his onely begotten sonne, villanisers of his Saints. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. v. §31. 890 The foundation [of the atheistic ethics and politics] is first laid in the villanizing of Humane Nature. 1693Bentley Serm. i. 13 In the debasing and villainizing of Mankind to the condition of Beasts. |