emasculate
Americanverb (used with object)
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emasculates,
present (3rd person singular)
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emasculated,
past participle, past
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emasculating
present participle
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to deprive of strength; weaken.
The law was emasculated by its opponents, making it largely ineffective by the time it was passed.
- Synonyms:
- soften, devitalize, undermine, debilitate
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to make (a man) feel less masculine.
Though some men might feel emasculated not making an income, I'm very happy as a stay-at-home father.
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to remove the testicles of; castrate.
adjective
verb
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to remove the testicles of; castrate; geld
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to deprive of vigour, effectiveness, etc
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botany to remove the stamens from (a flower) to prevent self-pollination for the purposes of plant breeding
adjective
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castrated; gelded
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deprived of strength, effectiveness, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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emasculationnoun
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emasculatornoun
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self-emasculationnoun
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emasculativeadjective
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emasculatoryadjective
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unemasculatedadjective
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unemasculativeadjective
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unemasculatoryadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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emasculatesimple
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emasculatessimple
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have emasculatedperfect
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has emasculatedperfect
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am emasculatingprogressive
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are emasculatingprogressive
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is emasculatingprogressive
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have been emasculatingperfect progressive
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has been emasculatingperfect progressive
Past
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emasculatedsimple
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had emasculatedperfect
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was emasculatingprogressive
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were emasculatingprogressive
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had been emasculatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of emasculate
First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin ēmasculātus (past participle of ēmasculāre ), equivalent to ē- “from”+ māscul(us) “male” + -ātus adjective suffix; see origin at e- 1, male, -ate 1
Explanation
When you emasculate something or someone, you take away its strength. Some people believe that having a tough female boss can emasculate male employees. The Latin emasculatus literally means "to castrate," though it is usually used figuratively, the same way emasculate is sometimes used to suggest a man isn't very manly. You may have seen bullies hassle a guy, saying he can't beat up anyone, or hit a curveball, or. . .you get the idea. Such emasculating is also insulting to women because it suggests strength and female are opposites.
Vocabulary lists containing emasculate
Dry
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In the Country We Love
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"Trying to Find Chinatown" by David Henry Hwang
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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:
That dynamic was taboo for generations of Americans who feared it might emasculate men and ruin couples’ romantic lives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2025
Ben Berman, a New York City vegan who began a serious weightlifting regimen last year, said he's trying to reappropriate the epithet "soy boy," historically used to emasculate vegan and vegetarian men.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2024
The British attempted to correct the problem by using another lubricant, but Indian troops remained suspicious and some began to believe the British were intentionally using lubricants made of offensive materials to emasculate the sepoys.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
Or they came from players, who used the barbs as a way to emasculate or demean the opponents across from them.
From New York Times ● Apr. 23, 2018
"That is what money does," Vyse had said, and the reflection was inevitable that it did very little after all to benefit character, and not a little to emasculate or degrade it.
From Masterman and Son by W. J. (William James) Dawson
“One guy presents himself as a kind of salt of the earth, a person you could hang out with, and then effectively emasculates the other by presenting them as the opposite.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 1, 2020
“I wanted a gender pronoun that was fun, and that immediately emasculates you—because you can’t roll your eyes and say ‘judy’ without being camp,” Mac told the Guardian during the “24-Decade” run.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 20, 2019
New York artist Cassady Benson illustrated a new version of this fowl emperor that emasculates him by removing his rooster comb and turning him into a round hen guarding a mysterious egg.
From Slate ● Mar. 20, 2017
Eichhorst thinks he’s won the Lumen, allegedly the key to worldwide vampire eradication, but Palmer publicly emasculates him by yanking funds.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2015
It emasculates the drama with its pervasive prettiness, its lazy felicitousness where it ought to be monstrous and terrifying, its reminiscences of Mendelssohn, Tchaikowsky and "Little Egypt."
From Musical Portraits Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers by Paul Rosenfeld
It seems to me the premise is flawed—that men are either emasculated or overly macho.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
That's because, Chung explains, influencers and politicians are "tapping into people's grievances" and "trying to recapture some of the feelings of being emasculated by the younger generation".
From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2026
Allow me to weigh in here, given that you mentioned it in your letter: It’s not your job to reduce your life savings or net worth so your husband doesn’t feel threatened or emasculated.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 22, 2026
“I was so gangster about it and my son felt emasculated and embarrassed. He desperately wanted to have friends and it turned out awful.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2023
She got an emasculated carrot, a droopy leaf of celery, a soft tomato and a fresh sprig of parsley.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
Poor Mr. Biswas, a man of meager prospects but irrepressible pride, must suffer through a series of demeaning dwellings to which his in-laws, the emasculating Tulsis, confine him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
So expressing gratitude, much less holding women in respect, is experienced as emasculating.
From Salon ● Apr. 8, 2026
A new entertainment technology, TV, was emasculating cinema as a cultural force, and film studios had started to fossilize into bottom line-oriented businesses.
From New York Times ● Nov. 28, 2020
That Young could then defang the Zarathustran Übermensch of its most objectionable connotations, de-masculinize it without emasculating it in the spirit of Emma Goldman, proved an achievement worthy of real potential social value.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2019
Between 1867 and 1871, he pushed himself even harder, growing thousands of hawkweeds in another patch of garden, emasculating the flowers with the same forceps, and dusting pollen with the same paintbrush.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
