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
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
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.
They appeared to me, though, as if pursuing something beyond Gain, which should narcotize or stimulate them to forget that man's life was a vain going to and fro.
From The Morgesons by Elizabeth Stoddard
You may narcotize us with the sedative of your content.
From The Torch Bearer by Reina Melcher Marquis
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
He was content to wait until the fever grew, and the poisons of the blood narcotized the dulled brain into indifference, and then goaded it into delirium.
From Never-Fail Blake by Arthur Stringer
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
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
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
The fish is not so good as that caught further down, and the natives have a habit of narcotizing it: the Silurus electricus is exceptionally plentiful.
From Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
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.
