stultify
Americanverb (used with object)
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to render absurdly or wholly futile or ineffectual, especially by degrading or frustrating means.
Must we stultify the progress of these reforms with yet more red tape?
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Law. to allege or prove (oneself or another person) to be of unsound mind.
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Older Use. to make, or cause to appear, foolish or ridiculous.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to make useless, futile, or ineffectual, esp by routine
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to cause to appear absurd or inconsistent
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to prove (someone) to be of unsound mind and thus not legally responsible
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of stultify
First recorded in 1760–70; from Late Latin stultificāre, equivalent to Latin stult(us) “stupid” + -i- -i- + -ficāre -fy
Explanation
When something stultifies you, it drains you of your energy, enthusiasm, or pleasure. Listening to an hour-long graduation speech on a hot, humid day might stultify you. The word stultify is sometimes used in place of to "bore" or "exhaust.” An uninspiring boss, too many rules, or a badly performed play can be stultifying. If you hang out in the hot sun all day, the stultifying heat might make you feel limp and listless. Even constant construction noise could stultify a person. To stultify a plan or person is to dampen enthusiasm in a big way.
Vocabulary lists containing stultify
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Power Suffix: -fy
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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:
He puts the yawn into stultify, the stupefy into catatonia, stone-facedly delivering the exact same chords, licks, and nasal delivery for over three decades over a backbeat that would have lost the Boer War.
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2012
But after a while Mr. Yeston’s tuneful feast begins to satiate and eventually stultify, and by the evening’s end it’s as if you’d eaten a whole buffet of pastry.
From New York Times ● Jul. 22, 2011
So when this cafeteria culture hits the big city, does the collision somehow stultify economic activity? Cities, after all, need people out on the sidewalks.
From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2011
The reason is the feeling in jazz that if you print something, if you write down the notes, you will stultify the music.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 12, 2010
We find that if we do not neglect or stultify any portion of our nature, our insight grows.
From What and Where is God? A Human Answer to the Deep Religious Cry of the Modern Soul by Richard la Rue Swain
In the last section, Elvis is stultified and oppressed, sapped of color and life, isolated in his “golden cage” at the International Hotel in Vegas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2022
Surrealism was a profoundly anticolonial movement — and long after it had stultified in metropolitan France, its oppositional languages found their highest expression in the Caribbean.
From New York Times ● Oct. 14, 2021
All these lessons leave me stultified; The hours in the day just drag along — I think they’ve multiplied!
From Washington Post ● Apr. 30, 2020
The stultified senators should distract themselves with dice cricket, a game beloved by indoorsy British children.
From Slate ● Jan. 23, 2020
It means that he stultified himself by making his conception of God absolutely contradict the essentials of his system.
From A Critical History of Greek Philosophy by W. T. (Walter Terence) Stace
For Jews, the stultifying fact to be faced is that antisemitism has nothing to do with Jews.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025
Because of the SSA’s stultifying culture, Dudek said, he leaned into his insubordinate streak.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2025
In reality, the most powerful force in the modern American city is the stultifying status quo.
From Slate ● Sep. 16, 2024
In Lebanon, the stultifying heat of summer is overlaid by a layer of anxiety.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2024
“What are these? Visual aids for civics or some other equally stultifying high school subject?”
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
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.
