attitudinize

English
WOTD – 26 March 2024

Etymology

From Italian attitudine (“attitude, pose, posture”) + English -ize (suffix forming verbs meaning ‘to do [something denoted by the word to which it is attached]’).[1] Attitudine is borrowed from Late Latin aptitūdinem, the accusative singular of aptitūdō (“fitness, aptitude”), from Latin aptus (“apt, proper; adapted, suitable”) (from apō (“to attach, connect; to fasten”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“to attach, join; to fasten; to fit”)) + -tūdō (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a condition or state).

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌætɪˈtjuːdɪnaɪz/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˌætəˈtud(ɪ)nˌaɪz/, [-ɾə-]
  • Hyphenation: at‧ti‧tud‧in‧ize

Verb

attitudinize (third-person singular simple present attitudinizes, present participle attitudinizing, simple past and past participle attitudinized) (American spelling, Oxford British English)

  1. (transitive)
    1. To cause (someone or something) to assume an attitude or pose; to pose, to posture.
      • 1951, Hortense Calisher, “In Greenwich there are Many Gravelled Walks”, in In the Absence of Angels: Stories, Boston, Mass.; Toronto, Ont.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 14:
        In Greenwich, there were many gravelled walks, unshrubbed except for the nurses who dotted them, silent and attitudinized as trees.
    2. To give the appearance of, or make a show of, (something) by assuming an affected or exaggerated attitude.
      • 1924, Gilbert Frankau, chapter 5, in Gerald Cranston’s Lady, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.; London: The Century Co., →OCLC, section 1, page 54:
        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!
  2. (intransitive)
    1. 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.
    2. (figurative) To create art, speak, or write in a manner which assumes affected, exaggerated, or unnatural attitudes.

Alternative forms

Derived terms

Translations
to cause (someone or something) to assume an attitude or pose — see pose,‎ posture

References
  1. “attitudinize, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “attitudinize, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
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