moralize

verb

Etymology: From Old French moraliser, equivalent to moral + -ize.

1. To make moral reflections (on, upon, about or over something); to regard acts and events as involving a moral.

   “1589, Robert Greene, Menaphon, London: Sampson Clarke, “Arcadia,” […] his Ladie reaching him a Marigold, he began to moralize of it thus merely. I meruaile the Poets that were so prodigall in painting the amorous affection of the Sunne to his Hyacinth, did neuer obserue the relation of loue twixt him and the Marigold:”

   “1741, Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, London: S. Richardson and J. Osborn,, Volume 3, Letter 8, p. 38, […] I shall not make an unworthy Correspondent altogether; for I can get into thy grave Way, and moralize a little now-and-then:”

2. To say (something) expressing a moral reflection or judgment.

   ““Unless I heard the whole repeated, I cannot continue it,” she said. / “Yet it was quickly learned, ‘soon gained, soon gone,’” moralized the tutor.”

   “1929, Virginia Woolf, “Geraldine and Jane” in The Common Reader, Second Series, London: The Hogarth Press, 1935, p. 191, “The more one loves, the more helpless one feels”, she moralised.”

3. To render moral; to correct the morals of; to give the appearance of morality to.

   “Let gratefull Aromatick odours burne, Let pious incense smoake, for the returne Of Great Flaminius, in whom abide More Art, then raised Athens to her pride, More civill Ethicks he containe, then may Well moralize all sauage India.”

   “In estimating the value of cotton, its capacity to excite industry among the lower classes of people […] is of high importance. It has had a large share in moralizing the poor white people of the country.”

4. To give a moral quality to; to affect the moral quality of, either for better or worse.

   “1716, Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, Part 3, in Religio Medici; its sequel Christian Morals, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844, p. 211, For since good and bad stars moralize not our actions, and neither excuse nor commend, acquit or condemn our good or bad deeds at the present or last bar […] not celestial figures, but virtuous schemes must denominate and state our actions.”

   “The attempts which are made in such [school] courses [on ‘hygiene’] to make as many physiological phenomena as possible point a moral, and to suppress the rest, are reminiscent of the analogous attempts to moralize zoology which were made by the authors of mediaeval bestiaries.”

5. To apply to a moral purpose; to explain in a moral sense; to draw a moral from.

   “Did he not moralize this spectacle?”

   “[…] where the Place is obscure, and the Construction difficult, I take leave by paraphrase to give the Meaning: which is a method of times observed by the Septuagint, whose Version Moralizeth in the Greek, what was wrapp’d up in figures by the Hebrew.”

6. To supply with moral lessons, teachings, or examples; to lend a moral to.

   “Kind Nature’s charities his steps attend, In every babbling brook he finds a friend, While chast’ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.”