As with other GAN kids, numbness is accompanied by an unusual sensitivity.
It took a while for the numbness that followed the initial shock to wear off.
Sometimes only the immediacy of news can break through the numbness.
The shock of the first air-raid sirens giving way to a kind of numbness.
It took me a few minutes to work the numbness out of my legs.
The numbness of that dead youth was still oppressing her heart and brain.
Or perhaps from numbness he slipped into a kind of deep sleep.
During the night, the fullness, numbness, and prickling were much increased.
The numbness is not of the skin, but of the brain, for the drunken man may be frozen or burned to death without pain.
"It's there you are a fool," she said, moved actually now by his numbness to his own endowment.
c.1400, nome, "deprived of motion or feeling," literally "taken, seized," from past participle of nimen "to take, seize," from Old English niman "to take, catch, grasp" (see nimble). The extraneous -b (to conform to comb, limb, etc.) appeared 17c. The notion is of being "taken" with palsy, shock, and especially cold. Figurative use from 1560s.
1550s, from numb (adj.). Related: Numbed; numbing.
numb (nŭm)
adj.
Being unable or only partially able to feel sensation or pain; deadened or anesthetized.
Being emotionally unresponsive; indifferent.
adjective
Stupid; unresponsive (1950s+)
