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
-
am enfeeblingprogressive
-
are enfeeblingprogressive
-
is enfeeblingprogressive
-
have been enfeeblingperfect progressive
-
has been enfeeblingperfect progressive
Past
-
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
It will forever be the least dangerous branch, but that is no reason to enfeeble it further.
From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2018
You must accept the whole or reject the whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate.
From An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Cardinal Newman
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
I confess that a paternalism that enfeebles the character appears to me scarcely less destructive than a license that intoxicates.
From The Builders by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
The one enfeebles the body, the other cripples the intellect, and aggravates envy, hatred, and malice.
From Ancient Faiths And Modern A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities by Thomas Inman
Not only does it hasten their decay to allow seeds to ripen, but materially enfeebles the entire plant.
From Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various
If this colour is deep, it gives rise to a luminous complementary, such as orange, or yellow, and enfeebles the black; while the other complementaries, such as violet or green, strengthen and purify it.
From Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists by Thomas Salter
“If the top leader is physically or mentally enfeebled, the system can ill-afford a crisis.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
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 attacks by the Mossi and Tuareg squeezed the enfeebled Malian Empire from the north and east.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
Capitalizing on Mantell’s enfeebled state, Owen set about systematically expunging Mantell’s contributions from the record, renaming species that Mantell had named years before and claiming credit for their discovery for himself.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
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
That is, what if books by Coelho, Mitch Albom and others don’t satisfy a market so much as create it, enfeebling their readers while purporting to strengthen them with revelations?
From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2020
In thy satire was no gall, in the sting of thy winged wit no venom, in the pathos of thy sorrow no enfeebling touch!
From Life Without and Life Within or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. by Margaret Fuller
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