emaciate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of emaciate
1640–50; < Latin ēmaciātus, wasted away, equivalent to ē- e- 1 + maciātus, past participle of maciāre to produce leanness ( maci ( ēs ) leanness + -ātus -ate 1 )
Explanation
To emaciate is to make someone extremely thin or very weak. A serious illness can often emaciate a person, leaving them gaunt and frail. The verb emaciate is much less common than its related adjective, emaciated. Both stem from the Latin emaciare, "make lean, cause to waste away." Whenever a person has become malnourished in a way that's evident just from looking at them, you can use this word: "The ravages of the Irish potato famine emaciated the starving people all across the country, eventually causing a million deaths."
Vocabulary lists containing emaciate
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:
Napoleon was pale and emaciate from the toils of his batteries at Toulon, and from his sleepless exertions in fortifying the coast.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine No. XVI.?September, 1851?Vol. III. by Various
In this foremost of tirthas of the Sarasvati, O king, he began to emaciate his own body by means of vows and fasts with fixed resolve.
From The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
With an eager gaze, she fixed her eye upon her pale and wasted cheek and her emaciate frame, and the dreadful truth, with the suddenness of a revelation, burst upon her.
From Madame Roland, Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
John placed his hand,90 Pale and emaciate, on his breast, and said: Thy words might raise from earth the heaviest heart.
From The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2 by George Gilfillan
Many of these infants are of such low vitality, however, that in spite of the most careful feeding they emaciate and die.
From Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. by Alexander Miles
The United States had called for Rivera's release after the government published photos of the visibly emaciated detainee hooked up to a ventilator.
From Barron's ● Jun. 8, 2026
Leke described the moment where he showed his dad the black-and-white footage of emaciated children and said until then in his "43 years of existence" he had never heard his father's voice shake.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
On Wednesday, the government had released photos of him hooked up to a ventilator and visibly emaciated, after acknowledging that his situation was "critical."
From Barron's ● May 31, 2026
Nicaragua's Ministry of Health released an image of an emaciated Rivera lying in a hospital bed being ventilated via a tube through his neck.
From BBC ● May 31, 2026
The view of emaciated beggars and barefoot children lugging containers of water never changed much.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
All those terrible yellow toxins, wizening his knees, slackening his tendons, emaciating his calves.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 1, 2011
That highly-blessed lady is always emaciating herself with the austerest of penances!
From The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
The agitators proclaim that their number in Parliament has diminished, and that they have lost cities and counties, because the constituency has decreased under the "emaciating influence of the registration law."
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 by Various
A lipoma, or fatty tumor, in the subcutaneous tissue, may go on increasing to huge bulk while the body is steadily emaciating.
From Special Report on Diseases of Cattle by United States. Bureau of Animal Industry
That their plunge might stimulate Methuen to burn his boots and brave the turgid waters of the Modder, was the fervent wish of Kimberley at the end of fourteen weeks of irksome, emaciating duress.
From The Siege of Kimberley by T. Phelan
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