Institutionalized

adj, verb

adj, verb ·6 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of institutionalize form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Having been established as an institution.

    "It is very difficult to get bureaucracies to abandon their institutionalized practices."

  2. 2
    Having been committed to an institution, such as a prison or an insane asylum.

    "Once a potential employer learns that you've been institutionalized, you can forget about getting the job."

  3. 3
    Having become dependent after a long time in, and unable to function outside of an institution, especially a prison.
Adjective
  1. 1
    officially placed in or committed to a specialized institution wordnet
  2. 2
    given the character of an institution or incorporated into a structured and usually well-established system wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
institutionalisedinstitutionalised

Example

More examples

"In Bali, the intergenerational forgetting of names is institutionalized. A woman will be known by her given name to peers. When she bears a son, the boy's age-mates will refer to her as "the mother of so-and-so.""

Related phrases

insane asylum

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