babelize

English

Alternative forms

• Babelize

Etymology

Babel +‎ -ize

Verb

babelize (third-person singular simple present babelizes, present participle babelizing, simple past and past participle babelized)

1. To confuse by mixing or mingling divergent or distinct languages or cultures.
   • 1995, Thomas A. Wilson, Genealogy of the way: the construction and uses of the Confucian tradition in late imperial China, →ISBN, page 18:

     And if we want to speak upon our return of what we have learned there, to speak in our language perforce loses the life of their thoughts, but to speak in their language is to babelize in our own world.