Bowdlerize means to remove or alter parts of a text that someone considers offensive, improper, or too explicit. The word is named after Thomas Bowdler, an English editor associated with a family friendly edition of Shakespeare published in 1818.
Bowdler and his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler prepared The Family Shakespeare, which changed or omitted passages that they believed were unsuitable for women and children. Because of that history, bowdlerize later became a general verb for sanitizing writing.
The word is usually used critically. It often suggests that an editor has made a work less honest, less vivid, or less faithful to the original.
- Literal use: A publisher bowdlerized the novel by cutting sexual references.
- Another example: The TV version was bowdlerized to remove profanity.
- Contrast: To edit for length is not always to bowdlerize. The idea usually involves removing material for moral or social reasons.
So when people say a classic was bowdlerized, they usually mean it was cleaned up, not simply shortened.