As with other GAN kids, numbness is accompanied by an unusual sensitivity.
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 a while for the numbness that followed the initial shock to wear off.
He had intermittent periods of numbness in the lower half of his body.
"It's there you are a fool," she said, moved actually now by his numbness to his own endowment.
I am widowed; and the first numbness of the unexpected shock has not left me yet.
He was waiting until the first numbness of the shock had passed.
He had a gone feeling at the pit of the stomach, and suffered from faintness and numbness.
Or perhaps from numbness he slipped into a kind of deep sleep.
1550s, from numb (adj.). Related: Numbed; numbing.
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.
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+)
