Villanize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To depict an individual as a wicked character within a story
2. To make someone appear morally questionable or evil in the eyes of others
3. To represent a person as an antagonist or evil figure in a narrative ; to cause someone to be seen as unethical or deserving of blame

Etymology: "Villanize" is an older spelling of "villainize," and the two forms share the same plain construction: the noun "villain" with the verb-forming suffix "-ize," which turns a noun into a verb meaning "to make into or treat as the thing named." So to villainize someone is, quite literally, to cast them as a villain. The noun behind it has a more dramatic history than the suffix. "Villain" passed into English through Old French, where "vilain" originally meant a farm worker or a person of low social rank, a sense tied to the feudal countryside. Over time that social meaning of baseness slid into a moral one, so that a man of humble birth came to be seen as a man of base character, and then simply as a wrongdoer. The verb carries that moral sense forward. To villainize someone is to present them as wicked in the eyes of others, which means the word preserves the old idea of lowness in its modern sense of moral condemnation.

Synonyms: demonize, vilify, malign, defame, disparage

Antonyms: praise, exalt, laud, commend, honor