benumb
Americanverb (used with object)
-
benumbs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
benumbed,
past participle, past
-
benumbing
present participle
-
to make numb; deprive of sensation.
benumbed by cold.
-
to render inactive; deaden or stupefy.
verb
-
to make numb or powerless; deaden physical feeling in, as by cold
-
(usually passive) to make inactive; stupefy (the mind, senses, will, etc)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
benumbsimple
-
benumbssimple
-
have benumbedperfect
-
has benumbedperfect
-
am benumbingprogressive
-
are benumbingprogressive
-
is benumbingprogressive
-
have been benumbingperfect progressive
-
has been benumbingperfect progressive
Past
-
benumbedsimple
-
had benumbedperfect
-
was benumbingprogressive
-
were benumbingprogressive
-
had been benumbingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of benumb
1350–1400; back formation from Middle English benomen, past participle of benimen to take away, Old English beniman; cognate with Dutch benemen, German benehmen, Gothic biniman. See be-, nimble, numb
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:
Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the understanding of the people….
From Forbes ● Aug. 26, 2014
And now she knew that the children were safe, the unexpectedness of it, the amazement of the whole thing, seemed almost to benumb her senses.
From The Island House A Tale for the Young Folks by F. M. (Frederic Morell) Holmes
The effect of this announcement was to benumb his faculties.
From Great African Travellers From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley by William Henry Giles Kingston
Hence, if we could benumb the surface, certain of the lesser operations might be undergone without great inconvenience.
From A Treatise on Physiology and Hygiene For Educational Institutions and General Readers by Joseph Chrisman Hutchison
I say, with all the resolution, with all the exertion of every one of those good feelings which you would sear and benumb.
From The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts by Augustus William Iffland
And a humble suggestion for the icy, northwesterly breeze that so often benumbs New York City.
From New York Times ● Dec. 23, 2013
After offering some Soviet advance brass a dinner at his canonry, complete with vintage port, he benumbs them with a conducted tour of his cathedral.
From Time Magazine Archive
What assaults the eye often benumbs the brain, but now all the networks are doing the same.
From Time Magazine Archive
From the arctics and antarctics which they explore, they bring a refrigeration that benumbs artistic sensibilities.
From Time Magazine Archive
For in them the deliberate subject, assuming the first importance, benumbs or kills the poem.
From Creative Unity by Rabindranath Tagore
Its importance may have been underestimated by a benumbed Supreme Court press, understandably focused on what is likely to be the Court’s decision.
From Slate ● Dec. 19, 2022
As friends and neighbors watch in silent awe, confused, benumbed, the father lowers the launcher and stage-growls the absolutely unnecessary: “It’s a boy.”
From Washington Post ● May 13, 2021
"River of Fundament" was inspired by "Ancient Evenings," Norman Mailer's sprawlingly bad 1983 novel — 709 pages of benumbed egocentrism set in pharaonic Egypt.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2015
He is frozen, benumbed, until, one bitterly cold morning, a dying American intelligence officer arrives on his doorstep and challenges him to live again.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 19, 2013
No longer feeling any cold in his legs and arms nor on his face, he thought that the frost had benumbed him.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
I attended and can assure you that, contrary to the glamorously edited videos in the show, they were malfunctioning, formless, benumbing ordeals.
From The New Yorker ● May 22, 2017
Tate Modern's current show Exposed, on surveillance photography, feels intellectually threadbare and aesthetically benumbing.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 9, 2010
Instead of that benumbing, step-by-step chronology to which so many earnest biographers undiscriminatingly consign everything from laundry bills to emotional crises, Edel weaves back and forth in time and subject like a novelist.
From Time Magazine Archive
A superabundance of news has the benumbing effect of mob rule on the senses.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Clinic had prepared me for it, benumbing my sense of shame, and besides, I was desperate for money.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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.
