bowdlerize: [19] In 1818 Dr Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), an English editor, published his Family Shakespeare, an expurgated edition of the plays ‘in which those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family’. This and other similarly censored versions of the English classics led to Bowdler’s name being cast as the epitome of Whitehousian suppression. The first recorded use of the verb was in a letter by General P Thompson in 1836.
bowdlerize (v.)
1836, from Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), English editor who in 1818 published a notorious expurgated Shakespeare, in which, according to his frontispiece, "nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." Related: Bowdlerized; bowdlerizing.
实用例句
1. There is no need to bowdlerize your speech when dealing with anyone from a legal standpoint.
从法律角度说,你不需要再跟任何人修订你的演讲稿了。
来自辞典例句
2. If you bowdlerize Story of the Wing , it wouldn't be as interesting a book.