anesthetize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
anesthetizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
anesthetized,
past participle, past
-
anesthetizing
present participle
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
anesthetizesimple
-
anesthetizessimple
-
have anesthetizedperfect
-
has anesthetizedperfect
-
am anesthetizingprogressive
-
are anesthetizingprogressive
-
is anesthetizingprogressive
-
have been anesthetizingperfect progressive
-
has been anesthetizingperfect progressive
Past
-
anesthetizedsimple
-
had anesthetizedperfect
-
was anesthetizingprogressive
-
were anesthetizingprogressive
-
had been anesthetizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of anesthetize
1840–50; < Greek anaísthēt ( os ) ( see anesthetic) + -ize
Explanation
If you need to have surgery, a doctor will anesthetize you, or give you medicine to make you sleep through the operation. When a vet knocks your dog out to clean his teeth, she anesthetizes him. Oral surgeons also anesthetize patients before removing their wisdom teeth. In both cases, special drugs are used to put the patient under, or make him sleep long enough for the procedure to be finished before he wakes up. A doctor whose job it is to anesthetize patients is called an anesthesiologist. The root word is Greek: anaisthesia, "lack of feeling or sensation."
Vocabulary lists containing anesthetize
Novel Study: Fahrenheit 451, Part III
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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.
See Examples For:
Kids are naturally inquisitive, but modern schooling is too often designed to anesthetize curiosity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
Zoo officials said the tragedy shows why decisions to anesthetize animals are not taken lightly.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 30, 2023
The researchers anesthetize the captured cats, give them a quick physical exam and fit them with GPS collars to track their movements.
From Seattle Times ● May 12, 2023
Dr. Angel Estrada, right, a veterinarian, and Brenda Arias, a veterinary student, anesthetize a horse undergoing surgery at a clinic in the community of Charco de Sierra in Guanajuato, Mexico.Credit...
From New York Times ● May 9, 2023
Two applications are usually sufficient completely to anesthetize the exterior and interior of the larynx by blocking of the superior laryngeal nerve without any endolaryngeal applications.
From Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery by Chevalier Jackson
That’s not easy, since capybaras max out around 155 pounds; sometimes he anesthetizes them for the trip back to the river.
From Slate ● May 27, 2026
After several visits, Marx underwent a TAP block, an injection that anesthetizes the anterior abdominal wall.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 19, 2021
She anesthetizes the animals, carefully removes their brains, firms the brains up with formalin, freezes them, then shaves them into slices thinner than a strand of human hair to study under a microscope.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 16, 2013
Laughter is a wonder drug by which man anesthetizes his consciousness of mortality.
From Time Magazine Archive
Your wife has leprosy!—not the physical form, but the kind that anesthetizes, ulcerates, deforms the soul—the leprosy of self-pity.
From Our Nervous Friends — Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness by Robert S. Carroll
In the veterinary emergency room, Samba was anesthetized, and the medical staff was then able to draw her blood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
“The brain didn’t evolve to be anesthetized, so we want to understand how the brain comes back from it.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
Bogdan fears that by cleaning up Meridian Hill Park -- which is managed and maintained by the National Park Service -- its history as a place of Black protest and community will be anesthetized.
From Barron's ● May 19, 2026
Proulx found something similar in 2018, when he and colleagues injected tracer dyes into the cisterna magna and found they entered the systemic blood more quickly in awake mice than anesthetized ones.
From Science Magazine ● May 24, 2024
Soon, with Gey anesthetized on the operating table, surgeons opened him up and found that the cancer was inoperable —growths covered his stomach, spleen, liver, and intestines.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
These are meant to be the anesthetizing accompaniment to playlists featuring purveyors of sonic wallpaper made to help your whole body chill out — a vibe-fest, on demand.
From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2025
Sampling wild primates traditionally requires trapping and anesthetizing the animals.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 5, 2023
The collective was founded by the composer-poet-pianist-conductor-essayist and former Los Angeles Opera artist in residence Matthew Aucoin and director Zack Winokur in 2017 as an occasional refuge from the artistically anesthetizing commercial classical music business.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2022
Lying in the ocean of anesthetizing dentist-office whirs, I didn’t know how I would ever get up from the chair.
From New York Times ● Apr. 1, 2022
A clogging lassitude had descended upon her, the reaction of cumulative nervous stress, anesthetizing her will, her desires, her very limbs.
From Success A Novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
