essentialize
Etymology
From essential + -ize.
essentialize means to reduce (something) to its essence. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
ESSENTIALIZE — [Verb] To reduce something to its fundamental, defining characteristics, often in a way that oversimplifies or misrepresents its full complexity. From essential (from Late Latin essentialis, from Latin essentia, "being, essence") + the English verbal suffix -ize (from Greek -izein, via Latin -izare). Unlike "generalize" (which casts a broad net over varied particulars) or "analyze" (which seeks to disentangle a web of constituent parts), to essentialize is to perform a reductive alchemy that isolates a perceived intrinsic core. It is the tourist brochure reducing a culture to a folk dance, the biographer defining a life by a single trauma, or the critic compressing a labyrinth of meaning into a simple moral—a quiet violence done in the name of clarity, for to understand a thing is often to murder it.
verb
- To reduce (something) to its essence.
- To misrepresent (something) by oversimplifying a summary of its essence.““This is an essentializing of Hinduism,” Ms. Narayanan said, “and the diversity of Hinduism in India is lost here.””
- To misrepresent (a characteristic of something) by falsely portraying it as essential to the whole (that is, implying that it defines the whole's essence).“to essentialize race by stereotyping "what Whites do" or "how Blacks think"”