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
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Giving, giving, eternal giving is bound to narcotize into sodden self-satisfaction, or at last to rouse to protest an awakening soul.
From Child Versus Parent Some Chapters on the Irrepressible Conflict in the Home by Wise, Stephen
You may narcotize us with the sedative of your content.
From The Torch Bearer by Marquis, Reina Melcher
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 Pryde, Anthony
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 Evans, Augusta J. (Augusta Jane)
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
She might have been some ancient oracle reciting her credo, and she seemed to have narcotized that magnetic current that had always vibrated between them.
From Black Oxen by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
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
This deeply autobiographical novel recounts growing up gay in rural France, where the men and women scuff and strain against economic morbidity, class invisibility and narcotizing boredom.
From New York Times ● May 25, 2017
For the NFL, the powerful narcotizing effects of gamification don’t stop there.
From Slate ● Oct. 9, 2013
More than almost any other TV show, the original “Beavis and Butt-Head” was a celebration of the immersive, narcotizing effect of television, of the thrills of passive consumption.
From New York Times ● Oct. 26, 2011
With a view to narcotizing them while in this condition, menthol was applied to the water but did not seem to have much effect.
From The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 by Mawson, Douglas, Sir
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.