blackguardize

English

Alternative forms

• blackguardise

Etymology

blackguard +‎ -ize

Verb

blackguardize (third-person singular simple present blackguardizes, present participle blackguardizing, simple past and past participle blackguardized)

1. To make blackguardly.
   • 1851, Philomathos, “Ought Government to Provide a Secular Education For the People?”, in The British Controversialist: And Literary Magazine, number 13, page 351:

     This is an Education which consists in the outleading of the blackguardizing, pauperizing, vagrant-like, and theftuous elements of the mentality, entirely withdrawn, and apart from any moral guidance, any elevating tendency, any ameliorating influence, nay, directly under the direction of the demoralized and the abandoned.

   • 1856, Louis Hector Berlioz, A treatise upon modern instrumentation and orchestration, page 107:

     Accordingly it has been employed, in a modern symphony, in order to parody, degrade, and blackguardize (if I may be pardoned the expression) a melody; the dramatic intention of the work requiring this strange transformation.

   • 1925, Walter Sichel, Types and Characters: A Kaleidoscope, page 137:

     I find it generally pays to blackguardize the husband.