enfeeble
Americanverb (used with object)
-
enfeebles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
enfeebled,
past participle, past
-
enfeebling
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
enfeeblesimple
-
enfeeblessimple
-
have enfeebledperfect
-
has enfeebledperfect
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am enfeeblingprogressive
-
are enfeeblingprogressive
-
is enfeeblingprogressive
-
have been enfeeblingperfect progressive
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has been enfeeblingperfect progressive
Past
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enfeebledsimple
-
had enfeebledperfect
-
was enfeeblingprogressive
-
were enfeeblingprogressive
-
had been enfeeblingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enfeeble
1300–50; Middle English enfeblen < Old French enfeblir. See en- 1, feeble
Explanation
To enfeeble is to make someone or something very weak or fragile. Your governor's budget cuts might enfeeble the state's public school system. If an illness weakens you — makes you feel frail and shaky — it enfeebles you. Aging enfeebles us, and the lack of Vitamin D in the winter also enfeebles many people. You can also say that making it harder for people to vote enfeebles the democratic process. The verb enfeeble combines the prefix en-, "cause to be," with feeble, with its Latin root flebilis, "that is to be wept over."
Vocabulary lists containing enfeeble
President Obama's Farewell Address
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This Week In Words: August 30–September 4, 2020
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Dawn
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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:
Partisanship, the first president observed, “serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2026
In a letter to Dr. Gabadadze and other deans, they wrote that they worried about setting “a precedent, completely lacking in due process, that could undermine faculty freedoms and correspondingly enfeeble proven pedagogic practices.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 3, 2022
Their goal is to blunt and enfeeble criticism and distract from its truthfulness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2022
Abood held fast for several decades in the face of a well-funded movement to reverse the decision and enfeeble public sector unions.
From Slate ● Dec. 7, 2017
He resolved that no French delicacies should enfeeble the constitution of this noble child.
From Henry IV, Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
But knowing the hallmarks of classic style will make anyone a better writer, and it is the strongest cure I know for the disease that enfeebles academic, bureaucratic, corporate, legal, and official prose.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
He was not of those whose Christian liberality slackens and enfeebles devotion to their own communion.
From Charles Lewis Cocke Founder of Hollins College by William Robert Lee Smith
It is rather red tape, and not the occasional snapping of red tape which enfeebles liberty.
From Body, Parentage and Character in History Notes on the Tudor Period by Furneaux Jordan
Habitual inaction enfeebles the faculties, and renders their occasional operation inefficient and fruitless.
From Old Wine and New Occasional Discourses by Joseph Cross
The effects of the heat, moreover, are aggravated by the humidity of the atmosphere, so that it saps the vitality and enfeebles the stoutest constitution.
From The Outlook: Uncle Sam's Place and Prospects in International Politics by Newton Macmillan
The former Red Army is in an enfeebled state.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025
She engenders compassion as Elisabeth grapples with her aging body, and a scene where she is enfeebled and struggles to get out of a chair is both achingly painful and achingly funny.
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2024
Added to this, Congress, which governed India for decades, looks enfeebled and in decline.
From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2024
The empire carried on in an enfeebled state, but over the ensuing decades, Chang’an ceded much military and civil authority to provincial warlords.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
A form was near—what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented me from distinguishing.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
His balding head’s scraggly hair—in contrast to the wigs worn by just about every Frenchman at the time, no matter the social class—is both ennobling and a bit enfeebling, like an aging but distinguished mane.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
They fear that the enfeebling of the judiciary will compromise the rule of law and make the economy unattractive for investment.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
It’s an image that evokes an enfeebling combination of envy and rage, as it becomes increasingly clear that the botters are perpetually one step ahead of our mere keyboards and mouses.
From The Verge ● May 25, 2022
These are things the Europeans agree need to be addressed, but not by enfeebling the nuclear deal which, they say, is crucial to their security.
From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2018
But now they are weary and faint, like those of some sickly dweller in cities--of some slave of effeminate and enfeebling luxury.
From The Gipsy (Vols I & II) A Tale by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
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.
