Definition of "bastardize" in English

verb

1. To claim or demonstrate that someone is a bastard, or illegitimate.

2. To reduce from a higher to a lower state, such as by removing refined elements or introducing debased elements; to debase.

   • The simplified word processor is a less-functional, bastardized version of the full program.
   • 2017, Douglas Charles Kane, Beren and Lúthien (2017) by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, in Journal of Tolkien Research, Volume 4, Issue 2, Article 5, The third potential audience is the general public at large, who either never has read any of Tolkien’s books or perhaps read The Lord of the Rings and/or The Hobbit long ago, but whose knowledge about Tolkien’s created secondary universe comes, if at all, mostly from seeing Peter Jackson’s bastardized adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and/or The Hobbit.

3. To beget out of wedlock.