v. [f. the name of Dr. T. Bowdler, who in 1818 published an edition of Shakespeare, ‘in which those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family’: see -IZE.] trans. To expurgate (a book or writing), by omitting or modifying words or passages considered indelicate or offensive; to castrate.
1836. Gen. P. Thompson, Lett., in Exerc. (1842), IV. 124. Among the names … are many, like Hermes, Nereus … which modern ultra-christians would have thought formidably heathenish; while Epaphroditus and Narcissus they would probably have Bowdlerized.
1869. Westm. Rev., Jan. It is gratifying to add that Mr. Dallas has resisted the temptation to Bowdlerize.
1881. Saintsbury, Dryden, 9. Evil counsellors who wished him to bowdlerise glorious John.
1883. Ch. Times, 703/4. It [Henry IV.] is Bowdlerized, to be sure, but that is no evil for school purposes.
Hence Bowdlerism, Bowdlerization, Bowdlerized ppl. a., Bowdlerizer, Bowdlerizing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1869. Pall Mall Gaz., 4 Aug., 12/2. We doubt whether Juvenal is a writer can be read with advantage at the age when Bowdlerism, as a moral precaution, would be desirable.
1878. Athenæum, 6 April, 441/3. Without any false squeamishness or inclination to Bowdlerism.
1865. Examiner, 7 Oct., 7/2. The text [of ‘Arabian Nights’] is much curtailed by Bowdlerization, the editor being a clergyman who would satisfy extreme fastidiousness.
1882. Westm. Rev., April, 583. The bowdlerization … is done in an exceedingly awkward and clumsy fashion.
1879. F. Harrison, Choice Bks. (1886), 63. A Bowdlerised version of it would be hardly intelligible as a tale.
1886. Huxley, in 19th Cent., April, 489. We may fairly inquire whether editorial Bowdlerising has not prevailed over historic truth.
1867. Observer, 24 Nov., 3/3. The Bowdlerising process to which the text has been subjected is equally destructive.
