Ordinarize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To make something commonplace, plain, or lacking any distinctive quality so that it blends in with everything else
2. To reduce something unusual or special to a mundane, everyday level by stripping away its distinction
3. To render a thing conventional and unremarkable, removing any sense of exceptionality from it

Etymology: "Ordinary" comes from Latin "ordinarius," meaning "orderly" or "regular," which in turn grows from "ordo," meaning "order" or "row." The sense of conforming to a rule survives in the church, where the "ordinary" is the bishop who holds authority over a diocese. Only later did the word drift toward the sense of commonplace. "Ordinarize" adds the suffix "-ize," which descends from the Greek "-izein" and is used to form verbs meaning "to make into" or "to cause to become." So to ordinarize something is to make it ordinary, reducing it to the everyday. The verb is rare, and it is built in English from the existing adjective rather than inherited from Latin.

Synonyms: normalize, standardize, regularize

Antonyms: individualize