enervate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
enervates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
enervated,
past participle, past
-
enervating
present participle
adjective
verb
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
enervatesimple
-
enervatessimple
-
have enervatedperfect
-
has enervatedperfect
-
am enervatingprogressive
-
are enervatingprogressive
-
is enervatingprogressive
-
have been enervatingperfect progressive
-
has been enervatingperfect progressive
Past
-
enervatedsimple
-
had enervatedperfect
-
was enervatingprogressive
-
were enervatingprogressive
-
had been enervatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enervate
First recorded in 1595–1605; from Latin ēnervātus “weakened” (past participle of ēnervāre “to weaken”), equivalent to ē- “from, out of” + nerv(us) “sinew” + -ātus adjective suffix; see origin at e- 1, nerve, -ate 1; compare Anglo-French enervir, French énerver
Explanation
To enervate is to weaken, wear down, or even bum out. Although a three-hour lecture on the history of socks might thrill someone, it would enervate most people. So would a too-long soak in a hot tub. With your parents. Trace enervate back far enough and you'll discover that it comes from the Latin enervare which means basically “to cut the sinew” or “to cause to be cut from the muscle.” That would certainly weaken someone. These days, there’s no need for violence. To enervate someone is to sap their energy, like by reading your ex all the love letters your new sweetheart wrote you. When something enervates you, it does more than get on your nerves; it brings you down.
Vocabulary lists containing enervate
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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:
Removing this key link of Westlake Avenue at this critical juncture could undo much of the recovery we’ve fought for and permanently enervate the small businesses of South Lake Union.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 9, 2024
Family crises that some might view as a call to action mostly just enervate her: She doesn’t need another reminder that middle age can be overwhelmingly hard and ponderously boring.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 14, 2022
Worries over the potential of technology to isolate and enervate citizens long predate Max Headroom, to be sure.
From Slate ● Nov. 29, 2019
We prefer wines that are nimble and energetic, that refresh the palate rather than enervate.
From New York Times ● Nov. 1, 2018
The voyage by boat, however, would probably enervate me, and I am certainly not perverse enough to attempt air travel even if I were able to afford it.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
It enervates a person, and what’s the point in that?
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2023
And nothing enervates me more than raw tortilla.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2018
Food is fuel, the right kind can energize the wrong kind enervates.
From Scientific American ● May 16, 2012
His pedantic style more often enervates than inspires.
From Time Magazine Archive
Indeed, nothing more dangerously engages monks in the commerce of the world; nothing more enervates in them the discipline of abstinence and mortification, than for them to eat and drink with seculars abroad.
From The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints January, February, March by Alban Butler
Unfortunately for the Kraken, they looked far more enervated in Monday’s Game 7 than they did energized.
From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2023
Dramatically, though, Kreutzer’s increasingly ahistoric retelling starts to feel inert, as enervated and suffused with ennui as its world-weary heroine.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2023
Visually, the darkly personal images are enervated, at once tactile and jumpy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2022
This is an actor who last year transformed Samuel Beckett’s enervated Gogo, from the Druid’s “Waiting for Godot,” into the human equivalent of a pogo stick.
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2019
Soon my mind was saturated, my being enervated, yet my soul continued to live and hope for better days.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
It gives the musical a rousing finish, but cannot erase the enervating effect of much of what has come before.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 10, 2025
Yet when he spoke following the haphazard 2-1 Europa League defeat on Thursday, there was a enervating familiarity about how the Rangers head coach explained away the outcome.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2025
Rachel — despite her challenges with Celeste, her old lover David, her ailing ex-husband and her enervating work life — also discovers good things about her new life as her body changes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2023
This hyperventilated quality initially serves the story and Chazelle’s concept of the era’s delirious excess, but the lack of modulation rapidly becomes enervating.
From New York Times ● Dec. 22, 2022
And so she appeased Tochi, putting America down, talking only about the things she, too, disliked about America, exaggerating her non-American accent, until the conversation became an enervating charade.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
