Enervate

WORD OF THE DAY

enervate / verb / EN-er-vayt

Definition

1: to reduce the mental or moral vigor of

2: to lessen the vitality or strength of

Examples

Dehydration and prolonged exposure to the sun had enervated the shipwrecked crew, leaving them almost too weak to hail the passing vessel.

"In contrast, there was dignity in the Joad family (of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath). When the Dust Bowl smothered Oklahoma, the Joads were not enervated, they moved west in search of work." 

— George Will, The Washington Post, 7 Dec. 2016

Did You Know?

Enervate is a word that some people use without really knowing what it means. They seem to believe that because enervate looks a little bit like energize and invigorate it must share their meaning—but it is actually their antonym. 

Enervate comes from the Latin enervatus,the past participle of the verb enervare, which literally means "to remove the sinews of," but is also used figuratively in the sense of "to weaken." 

The Latin enervare was formed from the prefix e-, meaning "out of," and nervus, meaning "sinew or nerve." So etymologically, at least, someone who is enervated is "out of nerve."