attitudinize
/ˌætɪˈtjuːdɪnaɪz/
attitudinize means to cause (someone or something) to assume an attitude or pose; to pose, to posture. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
attitudinize is pronounced /ˌætɪˈtjuːdɪnaɪz/.
Why “attitudinize” is a great word
ATTITUDINIZE — [Verb] To adopt an affected or exaggerated attitude, whether in physical bearing or intellectual posture, for calculated effect. From Italian *attitudine* ("attitude, posture") + English *-ize* (verb-forming suffix), with the Italian ultimately from Latin *aptitūdin-* (stem of *aptitūdō*, "fitness"), from *aptus* ("fitted") + *-tūdō* (noun-forming suffix denoting state or condition). First attested in English c. 1784. Unlike "posture," which can neutrally describe a stance, or "pose," which often denotes a momentary physical arrangement, to attitudinize is to perform a sustained and insincere role. It is the languid hand pressed to a feverless brow in a drawing room, the carefully careless slouch against a doorframe, or the adoption of a world-weary sigh as conversational garnish—a pantomime of depth that reveals only the shape of the empty space within.
Etymology
From Italian attitudine + -ize, from Latin aptitūdin- + -ize, from oblique stem of Latin aptitūdō, from aptus + -tūdō. By surface analysis, attitude + -ize.
verb
- To cause (someone or something) to assume an attitude or pose; to pose, to posture.“In Greenwich, there were many gravelled walks, unshrubbed except for the nurses who dotted them, silent and attitudinized as trees.”
- To give the appearance of, or make a show of, (something) by assuming an affected or exaggerated attitude.“While she, one hand on his arm, had been attitudinizing her dutiful gratitude, he—as she suddenly realized—had been deciding to rid her of Fordham [her estate manager]. No sentimentalizing, no attitudinizing there!”
- To assume an attitude or pose, especially one which is affected, exaggerated, or unnatural; to posture, to posturize; also, to excessively practise adopting attitudes or poses.“He had a great averſion to geſticulating in company. He called once to a gentleman vvho offended him in that point, "Don't attitudeniſe."”
- To create art, speak, or write in a manner which assumes affected, exaggerated, or unnatural attitudes.“[W]hoso rhymes a sonnet pays a tax, / Who paints a landscape dips brush at his cost, / Who scores a septett true for strings and wind / Mulcted must be—else how should I impose / Properly, attitudinize aright, / Did such conflicting claims as these divert / Hohenstiel-Schwangau from observing me?”