(click/touch triangles for details)
Definition
edit by removing or modifying parts considered vulgar — especially when the resulting version is not as good- "My God," he announced, "I've been pirated, me and Wharfinger, we've been Bowdlerized in reverse or something.'Thomas Pynchon -- The Crying of Lot 49
- It w-w-was interesting because someone had obviously b-b-bowdlerized it and left in all the bad parts.Dan Simmons -- Hyperion
- But despite bowdlerizing content, my family has been entirely faithful about visiting.Sara Gruen -- Water for Elephants
- They'd acted together, in the last of Adelia's garden theatricals — he'd been Ferdinand, she Miranda, in a bowdlerized version of The Tempest in which both sex and Caliban had been minimized.Margaret Atwood -- The Blind Assassin
- Consequently nothing can really shake the confidence of the public in the Lord Chamberlain's department except a remorseless and unbowdlerized narration of the licentious fictions which slip through its net, and are hallmarked by it with the approval of the Throne.George Bernard Shaw -- Mrs. Warren's Profession
(Editor's note: The prefix "un-" in unbowdlerized means not and reverses the meaning of bowdlerized. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.)