dehumanize

verb

de·​hu·​man·​ize (ˌ)dē-ˈ(h)yü-mə-ˌnīz 

dehumanized; dehumanizing; dehumanizes

transitive verb

: to deprive (someone or something) of human qualities, personality, or dignity: such as

a

: to subject (someone, such as a prisoner) to inhuman or degrading conditions or treatment

"… you treat people with respect, you get respect back. You treat them like animals, you strip search them, you dehumanize them, you lock them up, you don't feed them … you are going to get that back … "

—Adelina Iftene

b

: to address or portray (someone) in a way that obscures or demeans that person's humanity or individuality

propaganda that dehumanizes the enemy

I'm always struck by the way language is used to dehumanize others.

—Anna Lind-Guzik

Treating Chicagoland violence as merely a tally necessarily dehumanizes its victims, but it also obscures so much of the larger story about that violence.

—Gene Demby

But that approach ignores the fundamental dynamics of racism, which dehumanizes people along crude lines, ignoring any internal distinctions among those with broadly similar looks, treating them all as uniformly suspicious.

—Sangay K. Mishra

c

: to remove or reduce human involvement or interaction in (something, such as a process or place)

Nurses are also fearful that the use of technology will dehumanize patient care.

—Laurie A. Huryk

Social media dehumanizes personal interactions, taking them out of the dining room, the neighborhood store and workplace and into a nowhere we call cyberspace.

—Kay S. Hymowitz

"To me, Ms. Cao [Fei] is trying to portray that, even in a dehumanized environment like the automated warehouse, you need that inspiration or that order from up high."

—David Barboza

dehumanization

(ˌ)dē-ˌ(h)yü-mə-nə-ˈzā-shən 

noun

Synonyms

• animalize
• bestialize
• brutalize

Examples of dehumanize in a Sentence

Inspectors have observed terrible factory conditions that dehumanize workers.

the dehumanizing nature of torture

Recent Examples on the Web

From the outset of this war, public statements by high-level Israeli officials have dehumanized Palestinians and called for genocidal acts, contributing to an overall pattern of conduct that reveals Israel's true intentions. —Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 12 Dec. 2024

And heretics, even if they’re not burned at the stake, are dehumanized, ostracized and denied any empathy and understanding. —Arianna Huffington, TIME, 11 Dec. 2024

Experts told PolitiFact such narratives painting Haiti as a barbarous country are not new and are racist attempts to dehumanize Haitians. —Jeff Cercone, Austin American-Statesman, 14 Sep. 2024

Ignoring these nuances in favor of extreme labels like narcissism risks dehumanizing the individual and failing to appreciate the complexity of their behavior. —Quora, Forbes, 29 Nov. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1818, in the meaning defined above