tranquilize
Americanverb (used with or without object)
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of tranquilize
Explanation
If your cat Fluffy seems dazed after a visit to the vet, it’s probably because the vet had to tranquilize her. In other words, Fluffy was given a drug to calm her down or make her sleep. When doctors tranquilize a patient, it's usually to calm or relax the person before a medical procedure or after some trauma. It's more common to hear the verb tranquilize in the context of animal medicine or encounters with wild animals. For example, if a bear wanders into a suburban neighborhood, officials might use a dart gun to tranquilize it; they can then safely capture and relocate the bear. The root word, tranquil, comes from the Latin tranquillus, meaning "quiet."
Vocabulary lists containing tranquilize
The Battle of the Labyrinth
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for October 9–October 15, 2021
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Endangered
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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:
Zadeh said it was shortly before 1 p.m. when deputies were called to assist after a fish and game warden tried to tranquilize the big cat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2025
Officials from the town of Kleinmachnow said their goal was to tranquilize and capture the animal, rather than kill it.
From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2023
This let police, along with a veterinarian from the National Zoo and animal welfare activists from the Humane Rescue Alliance, tranquilize the bear at 10:15 a.m.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 9, 2023
A biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was able to tranquilize the moose, but the animal wasn’t completely unconscious.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 23, 2022
All she had done today was tranquilize a few dogs.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
Wildlife officials said biologists responded to the location and conducted an assessment of the mountain lion after it was tranquilized.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
Disaster nearly struck early in the relocation effort, when a tranquilized rhino stumbled into a creek.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2024
The Japanese macaque, who some had nicknamed “Kingussie Kong,” was caught and tranquilized Thursday morning, after a member of public called a hotline to report it was eating from a bird feeder in their garden.
From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2024
FWC personnel were called to assist, and they safely tranquilized and captured the panther, according to WBBH-TV.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 5, 2023
As for my mother, she was tranquilized, and remembers only that the pressure in her eyes made Father Mike’s face appear oddly elongated, like a priest in a painting by El Greco.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
There, the researchers count bears, tranquilizing and tagging some to collect data about their health.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 4, 2022
Comprised of keratin — the substance in human fingernails — rhino horn can grow back after it is trimmed, an operation that entails tranquilizing the animal.
From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2021
Tender but emphatic, Kong’s effect is equal parts fearsome and tranquilizing; in this stage version, we come to see the kinship between Kong and Ann not as a study in opposites but in shared alienation.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 19, 2018
There are two steam rooms, too, one offering the opportunity to recline on a contoured marble bed, like a body on a slab in a healthful mausoleum filled with a thick, humid, tranquilizing cloud.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2018
When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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.
