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medicalize - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From medical +‎ -ize.

medicalize (third-person singular simple present medicalizes, present participle medicalizing, simple past and past participle medicalized)

  1. (transitive) To make medical; to convert or reduce to a branch of medicine; especially, to pathologize.
    • 1996, Dion Farquhar, The Other Machine: Discourse and Reproductive Technologies:

      The sexual objectification and violation of women is made invisible because technological reproduction has turned medicalized pornography into education []

    • 1999, Judith Rooks, Charles S Mahan, Midwifery and Childbirth:

      Early in this century American obstetrics became committed to a path that has led to a highly medicalized approach to the care of women during pregnancy []

    • 2004, Leonore Tiefer, Sex is Not a Natural Act and Other Essays:

      [] sexual problems would have to be repackaged and medicalized.

to make medical; to convert or reduce to a branch of medicine; especially, to pathologize