verb

• 1no object Comment on issues of right and wrong, typically with an unfounded air of superiority.

  ‘the solution to climate change is not to moralize from on high’

  More example sentences

  • ‘the news media are sure to moralize about the arrogance of power’
  • ‘But she couldn't, and I just want to tell her that I think she is too self-righteous and moralizing and someday when she grows up a bit, she might understand.’
  • ‘But this is not the time for sermonizing or moralizing over US foreign policy.’
  • ‘Issues of race are presented plainly, without moralizing.’
  • ‘Martial's attitude, unlike most social description in antiquity, is not moralizing, but he takes pleasure simply in recording with all his verbal art the complexities and contradictions of the spectacle of life.’
  • ‘But overall, they have crafted an exceptional play, touching on matters of the heart in a way that uplifts without moralizing.’
  • ‘Rationalists do not regard moralizing as a legitimate function of government.’
  • ‘Charley never preached, much less moralized - he would simply get to the heart of the matter and save you time and breath.’
  • ‘Kisor certainly isn't preachy or moralizing, but his characters do wrestle with complex social issues.’
  • ‘And then everyone begins blaming and moralizing, and there's a lot of talk and writing about the return to '50s morality.’
  • ‘‘I wasn't really interested in moralizing or taking a stance in that respect,’ claims Marston.’
  • ‘When we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, we finally let go of harmful patterns.’
  • ‘I'm not moralizing here - I find that unhelpful, not to mention boring.’
  • ‘Please don't let reporters use it as a soapbox for moralizing.’
  • ‘But politicians simply can't help but moralise.’
  • ‘It works, though, because it never puts moralizing ahead of story or character.’
  • ‘If, instead of providing cure or care, doctors become intrusive and moralising, they will soon lose the respect of their patients.’
  • ‘Although I enjoyed those ancient tales, Dahl was never one to preach or moralise.’
  • ‘It is outstanding in that the book does not attempt to moralize or preach.’
  • ‘At Nuremberg, Rundstedt interpreted his military role as being to execute orders to the best of his ability, but never to moralize to his superior.’

  Synonyms

  pontificate, sermonize, philosophize, lecture, preach

  View synonyms

• 2with object Reform the character and conduct of.

  ‘he endeavoured to moralize an immoral society’

  More example sentences

  • ‘So it moralizes everyone to do what he or she wants to do and be what he or she wants to be, irrespective of what the society prescribes.’
  • ‘The congregations sought to give practical demonstration of their belief by assisting and moralizing the working masses.’
  • ‘They pointed to a progressive development of the concept of holiness, noting that it was gradually moralized under the influence of the great prophets.’
  • ‘His tutelage of Congress Party workers was always fraught with difficulty because those who believed that politics could be moralized were in a minority.’
  • ‘Book number two told him how to dump them, and book number three was how to pick up men, well, this was not to the liking of the newly reigning emperor Augustus, who at that time was trying to moralize Rome.’
  • ‘They decided to moralize the election and in so doing gave the Christian right a respectability, visibility, and political clout that it had not previously enjoyed.’
  • ‘Outlaw, really, your attempting to moralize instinct, and so far the only thing I can see your achieving is contempt for the many that helps no one.’
  • ‘Instead, Comte sought to moralize one and all, a cure for humanity not for one class at the expense of another.’
  • ‘And therein lies the strength of the film: it does not glorify criminality, nor does it attempt to moralise the rest of the country about it.’
  • ‘They can help moralise a demoralised community, as Martin Luther King did in the United States in the 1960s.’

  1. 2.1Interpret or explain as giving lessons on good and bad character and conduct.
     ‘mythographers normally moralize Narcissus as the man who wastes himself in pursuing worldly goods’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Rousseau, by contrast, cast his work as a speculative, and moralizing account of society in general.’
     • ‘But the problem with this view is that it moralizes images in terms of a reductive dichotomy between good and bad, ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, and thus fails to recognize the ambivalence of the text.’
     • ‘Instead, Pope's note to the passage moralizes Homer's sentiment.’
     • ‘We moralize the issue of weight and so the really virtuous person is the one who struggles to maintain a lower weight through sacrifice.’
     • ‘It will be my assertion that television creates a split or multiple identification, in which there is an approximate reflection of the viewer's experience, but also simultaneously, a re-channeling of this experience into a limited number of conventional and highly moralized narratives.’