ruralize

present singular third person ruralizes · participle present ruralizing · participle past ruralized · past ruralized · alternative ruralise

1. transitiveTo make rural; to give a rural character to (something or someone).

   the curling cloud / Of city smoke, by distance ruralised

   1799, William Wordsworth, The Prelude, London: Moxon, published 1850, Book 1, Introduction, p. 7

   3 more examples

   This tardy favorite of fortune […] thoroughly ruralized from head to foot, proceeded to escort us up the hill behind his house.

   1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 2, in The Silverado Squatters, Boston: Roberts Brothers, pages 40–41

   […] the quiet bachelor house had its best rooms on the big garden, which seemed to advance into them through their wide windows and ruralize their dullness.

   1890, Henry James, chapter 2, in The Tragic Muse, volume 2, London: Macmillan, page 23

   But it is also a collection of villages, a ruralized metropolis where people live by their wits and devices, cut off from the authorities, the law and often each other.

   2007 March 1, Michael Slackman, “In Arab Hub, the Poor Are Left to Their Fate”, in New York Times

2. intransitiveTo become rural; to take up residence or spend time in the country.

   c. 1822, Charles Lamb, undated letter to John Howard Payne in The Letter of Charles Lamb, 1814-1825, Boston: The Bibliophile Society, Volume 4, pp. 197-198, I shall certainly attend your Farce, if in town; but as ’t is possible I shall ruralize this week, I will have no orders of you till next week.

   3 more examples

   […] Letitia, who, except one jaunt to Margate, had never been out of the sound of Bow-bells, that she might ruralise after the fashion of the poets, sit under trees, and gather roses all day long;

   1824, Mary Russell Mitford, “Rosedale and Its Tenants”, in The Monthly Magazine, volume 11, page 525

   […] the passage which I recollect with the greatest pleasure in Cicero, is where he says that books delight us at home, and are no impediment abroad; travel with us, ruralise with us.

   1840, Leigh Hunt, “My Books”, in The Seer, London: Moxon, page 51

   Then there is his Excellency the “royal Chamberlain”—a sinecure, for his majesty dresses himself with his own hands, except when he is ruralizing at Waikiki and then he requires no dressing.

   1872, Mark Twain, chapter 67, in Roughing It, Hartford, CT: American Publiching Company, page 486

   Synonyms: rusticate