MEANING
1. To treat a claim, judgment or value as dependent on a particular context or standard.
2. To reformulate or treat something using the principles of the theory of relativity.
Use it for
qualifying a supposedly universal judgment; showing that a standard depends on context; challenging an absolute interpretation; putting an assessment in relation to a different frameLets a writer make the context or standard behind a supposedly absolute judgment explicit. Writing functions: Qualification / Uncertainty.
Words that belong together
- relativize a claim
- relativize moral judgments
- relativize an interpretation
On the page
The comparison relativizes the claim that one family structure is universally natural.
The critic relativizes standards of realism by showing how they change across literary traditions.
The physics lecturer explained what it would mean to relativize the classical model.
The authors relativize the equations before comparing their predictions with the earlier formulation.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- relativize
- Past tense
- relativized
- Past participle
- relativized
- Present participle
- relativizing
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- relativize
- Present continuous
- am/is/are relativizing
- Present perfect
- have/has relativized
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been relativizing
- Past
- relativized
- Past continuous
- was/were relativizing
- Past perfect
- had relativized
- Past perfect continuous
- had been relativizing
- Future
- will relativize
- Future continuous
- will be relativizing
- Future perfect
- will have relativized
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been relativizing
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Base relativize; third-person relativizes; past and past participle relativized; present participle relativizing. Usually transitive. UK relativise is a spelling alias. Register: academic. Commonness: uncommon (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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