inure
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
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to come into use; take or have effect.
-
to become beneficial or advantageous.
verb
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to cause to accept or become hardened to; habituate
-
(intr) (esp of a law, etc) to come into operation; take effect
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inuresimple
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inuressimple
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have inuredperfect
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has inuredperfect
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am inuringprogressive
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are inuringprogressive
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is inuringprogressive
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have been inuringperfect progressive
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has been inuringperfect progressive
Past
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inuredsimple
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had inuredperfect
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was inuringprogressive
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were inuringprogressive
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had been inuringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of inure
First recorded in 1480–90; verb use of phrase in ure, en ure “in use, customary,” from Anglo-French en ure “in use, at work,” equivalent to en in + ure (from Latin opera, plural of opus ) “work”; compare French oeuvre
Explanation
To inure is to get used to something difficult or unpleasant. If after spending an hour in your brother's room, you stop noticing the stinky-sock smell, you have become inured to the odor. Although the Latin roots of inure mean "in work," it may be easier to think of "in use" when you see inure. Got new shoes that give you blisters? When they are "in use" long enough, your feet will become inured to the spots that rub, and while you may have calluses, you will not be in pain. You can be inured to more abstract things too. When weathermen constantly play up the next big snowstorm or blizzard, you become inured to it and stop paying attention to them.
Vocabulary lists containing inure
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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:
“This will not inure to the benefit of the president.”
From Washington Times ● Apr. 15, 2022
"This will not inure to the benefit of the president."
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2022
Diggs appeared to inure his ankle on an 8-yard run by Eno Benjamin on a first-and-19 play.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 9, 2022
Perhaps then we’ll avoid practices that inure future generations to what’s really important.
From Washington Post ● May 25, 2018
He needed to expose Seabiscuit to a similarly unruly gate horse and inure him to the sight of it.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
“The fact that she has such a large platform inures to the benefit of her constituents, even if they can’t see her in person much of the time.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 12, 2021
It inures us to horrors, and it normalizes the worst possible things.
From Slate ● Dec. 11, 2019
It could be that watching a number of episodes in succession inures a person somewhat to the off-putting grime that dominated 1971 New York City.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2019
From our perspective, the advantage inures to the well-established, the well-organized and the well-funded.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 8, 2018
But even this has its compensations and inures us to defeat.
From Hunting with the Bow and Arrow by Pope, Saxton
The public is inured to that spectacle by now.
From Salon ● Jun. 28, 2026
But this won’t be an easy transition given how the banking system is now inured to the excess-reserves regime.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
For much of LIV's four and a bit seasons, observers have become inured to the riches of its 14 tournaments.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2026
Thursday’s benign reading of 16 points, a level that indicates broad market neutrality, seems par for the course in a market that’s growing inured to political risks.
From Barron's ● Jan. 22, 2026
An Olympic rowing career had left Porter Collins a bit inured to the pain of others, as he assumed they usually didn’t know what pain was.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Las Vegas didn’t challenge the rest of the way and star guard Chelsea Gray went back to the locker room midway through the fourth quarter after inuring her foot.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 15, 2023
They had to be there daily, inuring themselves to dismay.
From Time Magazine Archive
Children also should be habituated to this sponging all over the body, as the means of inuring them to, and securing them from, the injuries produced by atmospheric vicissitudes.
From Memoranda on Tours and Touraine Including remarks on the climate with a sketch of the Botany And Geology of the Province also on the Wines and Mineral Waters of France by Holdsworth, J. H.
But as they looked, steadily inuring their eyes to the darkness within, the walls of the old cabin took form, and they saw that everywhere was vacancy.
From The Gold Hunters A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds by Curwood, James Oliver
I commenced by inuring my body to hardship.
From Frankenstein by Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
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.
