Meanings
present singular third person decontextualizes · participle present decontextualizing · participle past decontextualized · past decontextualized
- transitiveTo divest of context.
Quantification (or statisticalization) is a set of scientific practices that transforms text statements into numerical ones, depersonalizing and decontextualizing them[…]
2008, Susan Greenhalgh, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China, page 1091 more example
In the early years of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government tried to control publishers through punitive policies, and then, as they were sure of having purged the publishing sector, gradually left it to its own devices. At first, fearing the repressive state apparatus, the author, the publisher and the audience turned to uncritical, mass-market books. Gradually, there was born an audience that preferred simple, ahistorical, and decontextualized narratives to socio-historical complexities and contradictions. Later, as the political atmosphere gradually opened up, the audiences raised in that historical timeframe remained the audience of the same uncritical works.
2019 June 27, Rasoul Mohsenzadeh, Mohammad Mostafavi Rad, “Dynamic History of Iranian Book Publishing in Political and Social Settings”, in Publishing Research Quarterly, volume 35, →DOI, page 514 of 500–516Synonyms: take out of context · Antonyms: contextualize
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*de
- Proto-Indo-European*déh₁
- Proto-Italic*dē
- Latindē
- Latindē-
- Englishde-
- Englishcontext
- Proto-Indo-European*h₂el-
- Proto-Indo-European*h₂élisder.?
- Englishcontextual
- Englishcontextualize
- Englishdecontextualize
From de- + contextualize.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
decontextualize. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/decontextualize
“decontextualize.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/decontextualize. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “decontextualize,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/decontextualize.
Source: decontextualize on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.