Gracilize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To exhibit a reduction in bone mass due to the process of evolution.

    "The apparent absence of any apparent sexual or age-based divisions of labour contrasts strikingly with anatomically modern humans of the Pleistocene in which females appear to gracilize relatively quickly, implying perhaps a sex-based division of labour (Soffer 1994)."

Example

More examples

"The apparent absence of any apparent sexual or age-based divisions of labour contrasts strikingly with anatomically modern humans of the Pleistocene in which females appear to gracilize relatively quickly, implying perhaps a sex-based division of labour (Soffer 1994)."

Etymology

From gracile + -ize.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.