01674--bowdlerize

Bowdlerize means, to censor or expurgate from a literary work those passages considered to be indecent or blasphemous. The word comes from Dr Thomas Bowdler, who published in 1818 The Family Shakespeare, 'in which those words or expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family'. Many oaths and sexually suggestive speeches were cut, and even entire characters like Doll Tearsheet in Henry W, Part One. Similarly bowdlerized editions of Gulliver's Travels and Moby-Dick have been produced for children.