victimization

Etymology

It is formed from English victimize + -ation.^[2][3] The verb was formed in English from victim and -ize,^[2][3] and victim comes from Middle French victime and its source Latin victima (“animal offered in sacrifice”).^[2][3] An earlier noun, Middle English victimacioun, sacrifice of one's life, came from Medieval Latin victimatio.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In a sense now obsolete, the state of living in poverty: 1830, in the Edinburgh Literary Journal.^[2] The sense "the action of victimizing a person" follows in 1835, in the Satirist.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to 1832,^[3] and the OED's 1989 edition to 1840.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verb victimize meant at first to kill or harm, then from 1830 to cheat or swindle and to cause a person distress, especially by singling them out for harsh treatment.^[2] The noun followed the same course: at first it was chiefly the action of deceiving or taking advantage of someone, and now it is the singling out of a person for unfair treatment.^[2] The OED's 1989 edition records a special use from 1923 for penalties imposed on trade union members who went on strike,^[4] and the revised OED has a rare theological sense of 1893, the state of being a sacrificial victim, said of the bread of the Eucharist.^[2]

Timeline

• 1830 – the state of living in poverty (obsolete by 1836).^[2]
• 1835 – the action of victimizing a person, at first of deceiving or exploiting them.^[2]
• 1893 – the state of being a sacrificial victim, of the Eucharist (obsolete).^[2][4]
• 1923 – the penalizing of trade union members who strike.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of making someone a victim, or the state of being victimized: the victimization of refugees by smugglers.^[5][1]
2. Unfair punishment or discrimination directed at a particular person, as of a worker who complains or goes on strike.^[6][2][4]

Related words

• victim
• victimize

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins