narcotize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to subject to or treat with a narcotic; stupefy.
-
to make dull; stupefy; deaden the awareness of.
He had used liquor to narcotize his anxieties.
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of narcotize
First recorded in 1835–45; narcot(ic) + -ize
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:
Actually the soaps do not kill bacteria, they permanently "narcotize" the germs.
From Time Magazine Archive
His grandfather was a conservative bourgeois of a superior type, who was the author of treatises designed to narcotize the forces of rebellion of his time.
From The Glands Regulating Personality by Louis Berman M.D.
And nevertheless he desired at present to stay in it, even though for a few days, in order that he might gaze longer upon Panna Marynia and, as he called it, "further narcotize himself."
From Whirlpools A Novel of Modern Poland by Henryk Sienkiewicz
By day and by night I was surrounded with influence intended to beguile me from the past, to narcotize memory, to make me in reality the heartless, soulless, scoffing creature that I certainly seem.
From Infelice by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans
There have been.—Lawrence!" the scent of the honeysuckle pinned into her blouse seemed to narcotize all his senses with its irresistible sweetness, "you will be true to me, won't you?
From Nightfall by Anthony Pryde
Her Charlotte has the aspect, both stunned and energized, of someone abruptly awakened from a narcotized life.
From New York Times ● May 30, 2019
Alongside the legendary Port Arthur duo UGK, rappers like Z-Ro, Lil’ Keke, Lil’ Troy, Paul Wall, and Lil’ Flip concocted a narcotized bang and sparkle that one can still hear in hip-hop.
From The New Yorker ● May 20, 2019
Sometimes it seems to me that young people are, indeed, entirely too quiet, too narcotized by gadgets, games and irrelevancies to notice the world is going to heck around them.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 14, 2014
We are a lazy and narcotized culture and it is hard to not just go to sleep.
From Salon ● May 10, 2013
Thus, when he saw acts which his reason must have told him were indefensible he was still narcotized by this conception of some new standard of right.
From New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index by Various
His treatments included electroconvulsive therapy, during which doctors use electric currents to spark a brain seizure, and also narcotizing drugs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2021
That’s where “White Noise,” the theater auteur Daniel Fish’s personal distillation of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel, could be seen during the weekend — hypnotizing, narcotizing, infuriating and, on occasion, seriously waking up its audiences.
From New York Times ● Sep. 22, 2019
Among ordinary citizens, drones seem to have had a narcotizing effect, deadening the impulse to reflect on the harm they cause.
From New York Times ● Jun. 13, 2018
For the NFL, the powerful narcotizing effects of gamification don’t stop there.
From Slate ● Oct. 9, 2013
On all but the strongest minds it casts a narcotizing spell, so that thought is arrested, and originality, vivacity, individuality become a crime—a shame that must be hidden.
From Sacred and Profane Love by Arnold Bennett
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.
