mythologize

From mythology +‎ -ize, after Middle French mythologiser.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mɪˈθɒlədʒʌɪz/

mythologize (third-person singular simple present mythologizes, present participle mythologizing, simple past and past participle mythologized)

1. (transitive, now rare) To interpret (a story etc.) as mythological; to explain the symbolic meaning of. [from 17th c.]
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 10, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     Most of Æsopes fables have divers senses, and severall interpretations: Those which Mythologize them, chuse some kinde of colour well-suting with the fable; but for the most part, it is no more than the first and superficiall glosse […].

2. (intransitive) To construct a myth or mythology. [from 17th c.]
3. (transitive) To make (something or someone) into a myth; to create a legend about. [from 19th c.]

• legendrize

• demythologize