v. [ad. L. latīnizāre, f. Latīnus Latin: see -IZE.]
1. trans. To turn into Latin, to write in Latin, to give a Latin form to (a word, etc., of another language).
1589. Nashe, Pref. to Greene’s Menaphon (Arb.), 9. That could scarcelie latinize their necke-verse.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, III. ix. (1632), 555. To dare to utter this verse, latinized by Cicero.
a. 1682. Sir T. Browne, Tracts, 86. Pliny hath latinized that word into Æra.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., II. 10. He had a hand in latinizing that … book.
1728. N. Salmon, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 361. They took the antient names of Rivers and Provinces, only latinizing them.
1855. Trench, Eng. Past & Pres., iii. 107. The tendency to latinize our speech received a new impulse from the revival of learning.
1881. Athenæum, 26 Feb., 294/1. That island,… which for ages our geographers have insisted on Latinizing from the Russian Novaya Zemlya into Nova Zembla.
2. To make Latin or Latin-like; to make conformable to the ideas, customs, etc., of the Latins, or to the rites, etc., of the Latin Church.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, I. xxv. (1632), 84. My Father and my Mother learned so much Latine…. To be short, we were all so Latinized, that [etc.].
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, I. 31. They make profession of the Greek Religion; but are in most things Latinized, except in Obedience to the Sea of Rome.
1699. Wanley, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 273. The help of many such at Rome (being Latiniz’d), father Kircher could not want.
1866. M. Arnold, in Cornhill Mag., May, 539. Gaul was Latinized in language, manners, and laws, and yet her people remained essentially Celtic.
1882–3. G. Washburn, in Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., 549. The Roman Catholic Church has … made great efforts to Latinize its Oriental branches.
3. To transcribe in Latin characters.
1837–9. Hallam, Hist. Lit., ii. I. § 7. These sprinklings of Greek in mediæval writings, whether in their proper characters or latinised.
4. intr. To use Latin forms, idioms, etc.
1642, 1724. [see LATINIZING ppl. a.].
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., V. vii. 246. Marke who writ his Gospell at Rome did Latinize and wrote it Ναζαρήνος.
1697. Dryden, Ded. Æneis (near end). I will not excuse but justify myself for one pretended crime … that I latinize too much.
1849. Ticknor, Sp. Lit., II. 485, note. He Latinizes less in the poems that follow, because it is more difficult to do it in verse.
1892. Guardian, 18 May, 743/2. Some of the correctors Latinise strongly. Ibid., 743/3. The MS. quite certainly does not Latinise but Graecises.
Hence Latinized ppl. a.; Latinizing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., Wks. 1738, I. 127. The lofty nakedness of your latinizing Barbarian.
1724. Waterland, Athan. Creed, 96. It is plain from the copy it self, that it was no Latinizing Greek that made it.
1807. G. Chalmers, Caledonia, I. I. i. 16, note. Durius is merely the latinized Dur.
1837–9. Hallam, Hist. Lit., vii. II. § 9. A Latinised phraseology.
1849. Ticknor, Sp. Lit., III. 350. They had fled from the ruins of the Latinized kingdom of the Goths.
1853. Kingsley, Hypatia, ix. 109. They spoke with sneers of Augustine’s Latinizing tendencies.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 329. It was of Latinising in this sense that Dryden was guilty.
1896. Tablet, 9 May, 725. The outcry against Latinizing is a favourite battle-cry.
