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Showing results for devitalize. Search instead for devicelike.
Synonyms

devitalize

American  
[dee-vahyt-l-ahyz] / diˈvaɪt lˌaɪz /
especially British, devitalise

verb (used with object)

devitalized, devitalizing
  1. to deprive of vitality or vital properties; make lifeless; weaken.


devitalize British  
/ diːˈvaɪtəˌlaɪz /

verb

  1. (tr) to lower or destroy the vitality of; make weak or lifeless

    the war devitalized the economy

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of devitalize

First recorded in 1840–50; de- + vitalize

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:

This can devitalize the plant to the point of it starting to die back.

From Seattle Times Feb. 22, 2023

So this latter phenomenon physicians use to devitalize cancerous growths-and on the ovaries to bring on artificial menopause.

From Time Magazine Archive

His opinions, whatever they are, do not devitalize his fiction.

From The Critical Game by John Albert Macy

These shoots are useless, devitalize the vine, and hinder vineyard operations.

From Manual of American Grape-Growing by U. P. Hedrick

Its effect must have also been to devitalize the oxygen and nitrogen of the atmosphere.

From A Republic Without a President and Other Stories by Herbert D. (Herbert Dickinson) Ward

She was a tennis-playing nutritionist with a master's in biochemistry who was a critic of processed, "devitalized" foods and advocated for vitamin supplements.

From Salon Sep. 17, 2023

“A vast, flocculent cloud darkened and devitalized the city, mimicking the family mood like weather does in memories.”

From New York Times Apr. 11, 2019

Surgeons working on the case at UMC noted in the Sunday briefing that they had found only minimal amounts of "devitalized" brain matter and had already removed it.

From Scientific American Jan. 11, 2011

Giffords, a 40-year-old Democratic lawmaker, did not have severe bleeding in the brain nor large sections of devitalized brain tissue, Lemole said.

From Reuters Jan. 9, 2011

Twelve hours in a railway-car exhausts one, not because of the sitting, but because of the devitalized air.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, June, 1863 by Various

After painting for several years, he found himself distressed by "the devitalizing isolation of the studio."

From Time Magazine Archive

In the process thousands of hours of vital time were lost in conferences, argument and devitalizing hiatuses while heels and ardor cooled.

From Time Magazine Archive

Manifestly, if complete lack of sleep is fatal, late hours and partial lack of sleep is at least devitalizing and detrimental to health.

From Vitality Supreme by Bernarr Macfadden

What about the hurried, ugly and devitalizing existence of our big towns?

From The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day by Evelyn Underhill

It is needless to state that the whole weakness of the story of atmosphere as a fiction results from the necessary devitalizing of its characters, for fiction primarily concerns man, his conflicts and his loves.

From The Technique of Fiction Writing by Robert Saunders Dowst

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