Definition of "colonize"

colonize

/ˈkɑlənaɪz/

verb
third-person singular simple present colonizes, present participle colonizing, simple past and past participle colonized
1. (transitive) To settle (a place) with colonists, and hence make (a place) into a colony.
2. (transitive) To settle (a group of people, a species, or the like) in a place as a colony.
  Quotations
  When you are colonized by dangerous bacteria their presence in your body does no damage. You become a reservoir for those little stinkers.
  2011, Steven Z. Kussin, Doctor, Your Patient Will See You Now, page 241
3. (transitive) To settle among and establish control over (the indigenous people of an area).
  Quotations
  The administration finally sent a naval vessel to return the 368 survivors to the United States in 1864. This ended official efforts to colonize blacks.
  1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2003, page 509
4. (intransitive) To begin a colony or colonies.
5. (transitive, social sciences, by extension) To intrude into and take over (the autonomy, experience, social movement, etc, of a less powerful person or group); to commandeer or appropriate.
  Quotations
  2010, Daisy Hernandez, Bushra Rehman, Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism
  What disservice would be done if issues regarding sexualities in organisations were side-lined by a heteronormative impetus to colonise queer theory?
  2011, Key Concepts in Critical Management Studies
  For slavery aimed not only to colonize black women's bodies, sex, and sexuality, to undermine her, it sought to subvert and destroy any authentic relationship between black women and black men as well as among black women themselves.
  2015, Kwok Pui-Lan, Laura E. Donaldson, Postcolonialism, Feminism and Religious Discourse
  […] suggesting that organisational discourses of heteronormativity cannot fully colonise gay sexualities and genders.
  2016, Nick Rumens, Queer Company: The Role and Meaning of Friendship in Gay Men's Work
  The burden of judgment imposed by the politics of respectability can easily colonize black minds.
  2017, Christopher J. Lebron, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea
  "To have our grief colonized to facilitate a racist political agenda was beyond offensive."
  2017 June 13, One Year After Pulse, Don't You Dare Come for Any of Us (Lambda Legal)
  These award-winning works of nature writing have extended and enhanced a genre that Jamie herself has criticised, describing it as “colonised by middle-class white men”.
  2021 August 23, Libby Brooks, quoting Kathleen Jamie, “Scotland’s new makar Kathleen Jamie: ‘Poetry is at the heart of our culture’”, in The Guardian‎

Definition of "colonize"

colonize

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations