decolonise

1. 1.

   grant independence to (a former colony)

   “West Africa was decolonized in the early 1960's”

   Synonymsdecolonize

   Antonymscolonise

   Broaderliberate

Other forms of decolonise

past tense

decolonised·

present participle

decolonising·

third person

decolonises·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about decolonise

What does decolonise mean?

decolonise means "grant independence to (a former colony)".

How many syllables are in decolonise?

decolonise has 4 syllables: de-co-lo-nise. The stress falls on "co".

What is another word for decolonise?

Close synonyms include decolonize. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of decolonise?

The recorded antonyms are colonise.

Is decolonise a common word?

decolonise is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.