Definition

1. Verb:
   • To make something less offensive, shocking, or controversial by removing or altering objectionable material. This often involves modifying language, content, or historical accounts to make them more palatable or acceptable to a general audience.
   • To make something hygienically clean by cleaning or sterilizing it, eliminating germs and dirt to prevent infection or disease.

Usage and Examples

• Verb (To make less offensive):

  • The film studio decided to sanitise the script to avoid a restrictive age rating.
  • Politicians often sanitise their speeches for public consumption.
  • The report was heavily sanitised before being declassified.

• Verb (To clean hygienically):

  • Hospital staff must sanitise their hands between seeing patients.
  • Please sanitise the kitchen surfaces after preparing raw meat.
  • The water treatment plant works to sanitise the public water supply.

Advanced Usage

• "Sanitise" in a figurative/metaphorical sense: Often used critically to describe the process of removing the harsh, complex, or unpleasant realities from a narrative, making it seem cleaner or simpler than it is.
  • The biography sanitises the author's troubled early life, presenting an unrealistically positive image.
• "Sanitised version": A common phrase referring to a version of a story, report, or account from which sensitive or disturbing details have been removed.
  • We were only given a sanitised version of events.

Variants and Related Words

• Sanitize: The preferred spelling in American English. It has the same meanings as 'sanitise'.
• Sanitisation/Sanitization (noun): The process or act of sanitising something.
  • The sanitisation of the historical record is concerning to scholars.
  • Regular sanitization of equipment is mandatory.
• Sanitiser/Sanitizer (noun): A substance used for sanitising, especially for hands or surfaces.
  • Use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser.

Synonyms

• To make less offensive: Bowdlerise, expurgate, censor, clean up, whitewash.
• To clean hygienically: Disinfect, sterilise, decontaminate, purify, cleanse.

Antonyms

• To make less offensive: Corrupt, pollute (figuratively), sensationalise.
• To clean hygienically: Contaminate, soil, infect, dirty.

Related Phrases and Contexts

• "Sanitise history": To alter the historical record by omitting or softening unpleasant facts.
  • Regimes that try to sanitise history often repeat its mistakes.
• "Sanitise language": To replace blunt, crude, or technical terms with euphemisms or milder language.
  • Corporate communications often sanitise language, turning "firing people" into "workforce optimisation".

Verb

1. make less offensive or more acceptable by removing objectionable features
   • sanitize a document before releasing it to the press
   • sanitize history
   • sanitize the language in a book
2. make sanitary by cleaning or sterilizing