The British spelling of the present participle of 'bowdlerize'; the act of removing words or passages considered offensive or indecent from a text.
From Thomas Bowdler, an 18th-century editor who published a family-friendly version of Shakespeare with 'offensive' material removed, plus the verb suffix '-ise' (British) or '-ize' (American).
Thomas Bowdler became so famous for censoring Shakespeare that his name became a verb—and his work is now a cautionary tale about over-sanitizing art, since critics argue he removed much of Shakespeare's genius and intention.
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