Hostilize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make hostile; to cause to become an enemy. archaic

    "1794, Anna Seward, Letters of Anna Seward Letter 96, to Reverend T. S. Whalley. When England, Spain, Holland, and Russia united with the powers already hostilized against an impious nation, that had reduced robbery, murder, and profaneness to a cool and practical system, I thought there was the fairest prospect of their success ."

Example

More examples

"1794, Anna Seward, Letters of Anna Seward Letter 96, to Reverend T. S. Whalley. When England, Spain, Holland, and Russia united with the powers already hostilized against an impious nation, that had reduced robbery, murder, and profaneness to a cool and practical system, I thought there was the fairest prospect of their success ."

Etymology

From hostile + -ize.

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