Moralize

/ˈmɒ.ɹə.laɪz/ · verb

Meaning

(intransitive) To make moral reflections (on, upon, about or over something); to regard acts and events as involving a moral..

Definitions by Sense

1. (intransitive) To make moral reflections (on, upon, about or over something); to regard acts and events as involving a moral.
2. (transitive) To say (something) expressing a moral reflection or judgment.
3. (transitive) To render moral; to correct the morals of; to give the appearance of morality to.
4. (transitive) To give a moral quality to; to affect the moral quality of, either for better or worse.
5. (transitive, obsolete) To apply to a moral purpose; to explain in a moral sense; to draw a moral from.
6. (transitive, obsolete) To supply with moral lessons, teachings, or examples; to lend a moral to.

Example Sentences

1589, Robert Greene, Menaphon, London: Sampson Clarke, “Arcadia,” […] his Ladie reaching him a Marigold, he began to moralize of it thus merely. I meruaile the Poets that were so prodigall in painting the amorous affection of the Sunne to his Hyacinth, did neuer obserue the relation of loue twixt him and the Marigold:

1741, Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, London: S. Richardson and J. Osborn,, Volume 3, Letter 8, p. 38, […] I shall not make an unworthy Correspondent altogether; for I can get into thy grave Way, and moralize a little now-and-then:

One hoped, and the other despaired: they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them. But you’ll not want to hear my moralising, Mr. Lockwood; you’ll judge, as well as I can, all these things:

The usual conduct of the spoilt child! Had she not witnessed it, and moralized upon it, in other families?

I depended on Philip now, for I had nothing, not even seven cents for carfare. I could be certain, however, that he wouldn’t moralize at me, he’d set about dressing me, he’d scrounge a sweater among his neighborhood acquaintances […]

1929, Virginia Woolf, “Geraldine and Jane” in The Common Reader, Second Series, London: The Hogarth Press, 1935, p. 191, “The more one loves, the more helpless one feels”, she moralised.

“Unless I heard the whole repeated, I cannot continue it,” she said. / “Yet it was quickly learned, ‘soon gained, soon gone,’” moralized the tutor.

A Cake Related Fatphobic Incident — or CRFI for short — is that moment when it's time to eat delicious cake, and an otherwise joyous experience gets ruined by a moralizing impulse.

Synonyms for moralize

Antonyms for moralize

Related Words

Word Forms

• moralizes
• moralizing
• moralized
• moralise

Usage Notes

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