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enervate

[en-er-vayt, ih-nur-vit] / ˈɛn ərˌveɪt, ɪˈnɜr vɪt /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Removing this key link of Westlake Avenue at this critical juncture could undo much of the recovery we’ve fought for and permanently enervate the small businesses of South Lake Union.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 9, 2024

In humans most serotonin is synthesized in neurons that enervate smooth muscle cells lining the gastrointestinal tract.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022

Family crises that some might view as a call to action mostly just enervate her: She doesn’t need another reminder that middle age can be overwhelmingly hard and ponderously boring.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 14, 2022

Worries over the potential of technology to isolate and enervate citizens long predate Max Headroom, to be sure.

From Slate ● Nov. 29, 2019

The voyage by boat, however, would probably enervate me, and I am certainly not perverse enough to attempt air travel even if I were able to afford it.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

It enervates a person, and what’s the point in that?

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2023

And nothing enervates me more than raw tortilla.

From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2018

Food is fuel, the right kind can energize the wrong kind enervates.

From Scientific American ● May 16, 2012

A real nightmare puzzles, enervates or scares the victim, and it is a rash man who tries to tell about it.

From Time Magazine Archive

“Too free an indulgence in luxuries enervate and injure the system:” say, enervates and injures, &c.

From Five Hundred Mistakes of Daily Occurrence in Speaking, Pronouncing, and Writing the English Language, Corrected by Anonymous

Unfortunately for the Kraken, they looked far more enervated in Monday’s Game 7 than they did energized.

From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2023

Dramatically, though, Kreutzer’s increasingly ahistoric retelling starts to feel inert, as enervated and suffused with ennui as its world-weary heroine.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2023

Visually, the darkly personal images are enervated, at once tactile and jumpy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2022

It certainly seemed that way at his West Virginia rally, where he appeared distracted and enervated.

From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2018

He took to his bed, eventually so enervated that he was forced to take an indefinite leave from his job at the shipyard.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

The result is flattening and enervating, and my dissatisfaction was apparently shared by others.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

Yet when he spoke following the haphazard 2-1 Europa League defeat on Thursday, there was a enervating familiarity about how the Rangers head coach explained away the outcome.

From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2025

Rachel — despite her challenges with Celeste, her old lover David, her ailing ex-husband and her enervating work life — also discovers good things about her new life as her body changes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2023

This hyperventilated quality initially serves the story and Chazelle’s concept of the era’s delirious excess, but the lack of modulation rapidly becomes enervating.

From New York Times ● Dec. 22, 2022

On the contrary: if something’s enervating, it drains you of energy.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner


Vocabulary lists containing enervate

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