Respectabilize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make respectable; to give an appearance of respectability. transitive

    "There's not a notion in this book that has a more frightful, or ridiculous, mien than had the notion of human footprints in rocks, when that now respectabilized ruffian, or clown, was first heard from."

Example

More examples

"There's not a notion in this book that has a more frightful, or ridiculous, mien than had the notion of human footprints in rocks, when that now respectabilized ruffian, or clown, was first heard from."

Etymology

From respectable + -ize.

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