Weaponize
Etymology
From “weapon” and the verb-forming suffix “-ize,” coined in the mid-20th century in a literal military sense: to weaponize a pathogen or a satellite. It spread rapidly into figurative use — to weaponize privacy law, nostalgia, or one’s own helplessness — where the point is that the item was not built to wound.
verb · /WEP-uh-nyze/
To turn something ordinarily harmless into an instrument of harm or attack.
What it names
A modern move: repurposing a neutral thing — data, a rule, a feeling, an incompetence — into a tool used against someone.
Example
He weaponized the open-door policy, turning every casual chat into ammunition for the next review.
Related idea
To weaponize is to arm a neutral thing against people; to instrumentalize is merely to use a person or thing as a means. Weaponizing is instrumentalizing turned hostile.
See also