Bowdlerize
Etymology
From Thomas Bowdler, who in 1807 published "The Family Shakespeare," an edition with everything he deemed unfit for women and children cut or reworded. His surname became the verb for expurgating a work to make it "decent." It carries a note of disapproval, implying the editing damaged the original.
verb · /BOWD-luh-ryze/
To remove or soften content considered offensive from a book or work, often clumsily.
What it names
The precise verb for prudish censorship that sanitizes a text rather than banning it.
Example
The school edition bowdlerized the novel, stripping out every difficult passage.
Related idea
To bowdlerize is to sanitize a work by cutting offending content; a euphemism softens a single word or phrase — expurgating a whole text versus dressing up one term.
See also