denaturalize

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From de- +‎ naturalize.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /diːˈnæt(jə)ɹəlaɪz/, /diːˈnætʃəɹəlaɪz/

Verb

denaturalize (third-person singular simple present denaturalizes, present participle denaturalizing, simple past and past participle denaturalized)

  1. (transitive) To revoke or deny the citizenship of.
    After the regime fell, the leader was executed and the principal party members were denaturalized and deported.
    • 2025 July 4, Hannah Rabinowitz, “Law used to kick out Nazis could be used to strip citizenship from many more Americans”, in CNN‎[1]:
      For decades, the US Department of Justice has used a tool to sniff out former Nazis who lied their way into becoming American citizens: a law that allowed the department to denaturalize, or strip, citizenship from criminals who falsified their records or hid their illicit pasts.
  2. (transitive) To make less natural; to cause to deviate from its nature.
    • 1886, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge:
      Henchard was, by original make, the last man to act stealthily, for good or for evil. But the solicitus timor of his love — the dependence upon Elizabeth's love into which he had declined (or, in another sense, to which he had advanced) — denaturalized him.
  3. (transitive) To cease to treat as natural.
    • 2018, Lee Quinby, Millennial Seduction: A Skeptic Confronts Apocalyptic Culture, page 139:
      One question these scenes pose for cultural theory is whether such depictions denaturalize rape and denormalize masculinist pleasure in viewing sexual violence.

See also

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