colonize
Pronunciation
  • (GA) IPA: /ˈkɑlənaɪz/
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈkɒlənaɪz/
Verb

colonize (colonizes, present participle colonizing; 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.
  3. (transitive) To settle among and establish control over (the indigenous people of an area).
    • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford 2003, page 509:
      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.
  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.
    • 2010, Daisy Hernandez, Bushra Rehman, Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism ISBN 0786750669:
    • 2011, Key Concepts in Critical Management Studies ISBN 1849205698:
      What disservice would be done if issues regarding sexualities in organisations were side-lined by a heteronormative impetus to colonise queer theory?
    • 2015, Kwok Pui-Lan, Laura E. Donaldson, Postcolonialism, Feminism and Religious Discourse ISBN 1136697683:
      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.
    • 2017 June 13, One Year After Pulse, Don't You Dare Come for Any of Us ↗ (Lambda Legal):
      "To have our grief colonized to facilitate a racist political agenda was beyond offensive."
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