Americanise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To give something American characteristics, attitudes, or cultural traits
2. To adapt or convert something to conform to American standards or practices
3. To infuse with American qualities or to cause something to become distinctly American in nature

Etymology: Americanise is built from "American" plus the English verb-forming suffix "-ise", which came into English through Middle French and ultimately traces back to the Ancient Greek suffix "-izein", used to turn nouns and adjectives into verbs meaning "to make into" or "to behave like". The Greek ending passed into Late Latin as "-izare" and then into Middle French as "-iser", so the suffix arrived in English by a route through French rather than directly from Greek. The base word has its own unexpected history. "America" was coined as a Latinised form in New Latin, and the name is commonly linked to the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, whose first name supplied the root. The adjective "American" was then formed from that name in English, and "americanise" follows the same pattern as many verbs of the period, such as "anglicise" and "frenchify", where a national or regional adjective is turned into a verb meaning to make something conform to that culture.

Synonyms: Americanize