To make something animal-like; to reduce something to an animal state or to invest with animal qualities.
From 'animal' plus the suffix '-ise' (British spelling of '-ize'), formed in the 17th-18th centuries as philosophers debated human nature and civilization.
Victorian thinkers were obsessed with the verb 'animalise'—they worried that poverty, crime, or lack of education would 'animalise' people, stripping away what made them civilized and rational.
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