The process of becoming gentile or adopting the customs, manners, or religious practices of non-Jewish peoples.
From gentilize plus the suffix -ation. Gentilize itself comes from gentile (non-Jewish person), from Latin gentilis. The term developed in religious and historical contexts to describe cultural assimilation.
This word appears mainly in Jewish historical texts describing how communities adopted surrounding cultures during the diaspora. It's a linguistic mirror of how groups navigate belonging—sometimes voluntarily embracing new identities, sometimes forced by circumstance.
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