v. [f. VULGAR a. + -IZE, perh. after med.L. vulgarizare (1305), F. vulgariser (16th cent. and mod.), Sp. vulgarizar, Pg. -isar, It. volgarizzare.]
1. intr. To act in a vulgar manner; to become vulgar.
1605. Daniel, Epist. Lady Anne Clifford, vi. Honour … cannot stray and breake abroade Into the priuate wayes of carelesnesse; Nor euer may descend to vulgarize, Or be below the sphere of her abode.
1846. Mrs. Gore, Eng. Char. (1852), 96. A man having too much regard for his complexion to infringe upon the wine-cellar, and too much interest in his slimness to vulgarise on ale.
2. trans. To make common or popular; to reduce to the level of something usual or ordinary.
1709. T. Robinson, Vind. Mosaick Syst., Introd. 6. To Vulgarize and to Allegorize the Scripture, are equally of evil Consequence to Religion.
1786. Sir J. Reynolds, Disc., xiii. Wks. 1797, I. 273. To find proper foundations for science is neither to narrow or to vulgarise it.
1839. Bailey, Festus, 145. The great bards … Men who have vulgarized sublimity, And bought up truth for the nations.
1870. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 154. The invention of printing, without yet vulgarizing letters, had made the thought and history of the entire past contemporaneous.
1872. Browning, Fifine, lxxv. Change yourself, dissimulate the thought And vulgarize the word.
3. To make vulgar or commonplace; to debase, degrade.
1756. Mrs. F. Brooke, Old Maid, No. 32. 262. Its being the religion of the whole nation has made it too common, and, if I may be allowed the expression, vulgarized it.
a. 1774. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 29. It would vilify, and, I may say, vulgarize the Almighty, to imagine Him … engaged among the trifling scenes that occupy our notice.
1820. Hazlitt, Table-t. (1824), II. i. 7. They vulgarise and degrade whatever is interesting or sacred to the mind.
a. 1821. V. Knox, Winter Even., xxxviii. Wks. 1824, II. 478. Learning sullied with pedantry, exhortation vulgarized by low wit.
a. 1853. Robertson, Lect., Wordsw. (1858), 244. It seemed as if all that noise was vulgarizing the poet.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Eur. (1894), ii. 64. Some … peak, not yet vulgarised by associations with guides and picnics.
b. absol. To cause or produce vulgarity.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, vi. Family jarring vulgarizes—family union elevates.
Hence Vulgarized ppl. a.; Vulgarizer, one who vulgarizes or makes popular; Vulgarizing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1847. De Quincey, in ‘H. A. Page,’ Life (1877), I. xv. 349. The absolute realities of *vulgarised life as it exists in plebeian ranks amongst our countrymen.
1884. Harper’s Mag., March, 568/2. The vulgarized phrase, a gentleman.
1899. Athenæum, 28 Jan., 105/3. He [Albert Smith] was the *vulgarizer of Switzerland.
1831. Mrs. Hemans, in Chorley, Mem. (1836), II. 236. Braham’s singing was not equal to the instrumental part, but he did not disfigure it by his customary and *vulgarizing graces.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Eur. (1894), xii. 280. The eternal mountains … never recall … the vulgarising association of old days.
