Bulverize

B3U1L1V4E1R1I1Z10E1

verb

To subject (an opponent) in a debate) to Bulverism ("a rhetorical fallacy in which a speaker assumes that their opponent's argument is wrong, and instead of disproving it, condescendingly explains why their opponent would have come to that conclusion").

Scrabble 23

Meanings

verbBulverize (third-person singular simple present Bulverizes, present participle Bulverizing, simple past and past participle Bulverized)

present singular third person Bulverizes · participle present Bulverizing · participle past Bulverized · past Bulverized

  1. transitiveTo subject (an opponent) in a debate) to Bulverism ("a rhetorical fallacy in which a speaker assumes that their opponent's argument is wrong, and instead of disproving it, condescendingly explains why their opponent would have come to that conclusion").
    1 more example

    We might recall here Roger Scruton's commendation of taking "a negotiating posture towards the other'—to do that, I think, is to cease to see a person as "the other" but rather as "my neighbor." And when you do that, it becomes harder to Bulverize that person, to treat him or her as so obviously wrong that no debate is required, only mockery.

    2017, Alan Jacobs, How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds, New York, N.Y.: Currency, →ISBN, page 83
Cite this entry
APA

Bulverize. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bulverize

MLA

“Bulverize.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bulverize. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Bulverize,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bulverize.

Source: Bulverize on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.