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Enfeeble   Listen
verb
Enfeeble  v. t.  (past & past part. enfeebled; pres. part. enfeebling)  To make feeble; to deprive of strength; to reduce the strength or force of; to weaken; to debilitate. "Enfeebled by scanty subsistence and excessive toil."
Synonyms: To weaken; debilitate; enervate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Enfeeble" Quotes from Famous Books



... induced. We desire to repress any tendency to the rapid development of the nervous system. Above all, is the reading of the child to be carefully watched and guarded. Nothing can be worse food for a child than what are called sensational romances. That the reading of such tends to enfeeble and enervate the whole thinking power is a fact which properly belongs to the intellectual side of our question not yet reached, and may be here merely mentioned. But the effect on the physical condition of the youth, of such carelessly written sensational stories, mostly of the French type, ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... cold or tepid bathing. Salt added to the bath is helpful. Change of air is a good tonic. Port wine and other alcoholics while giving a false sensation of increased vigor, really reduce the tone of the pulse, and therefore tend to enfeeble the system. Alcohol is a relaxant, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... which affords an arena for both combatants in that awful, never-dying duel. St. Paul says that his apostolical power is given him to edification, and not to destruction. There can be no better account of the infallibility of the Church. Its object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the freedom or vigour of human thought in religious speculation, but ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... of the North of Italy,[3] with the exception of Mantua, Ferrara, and Bologna, Gian Galeazzo turned his attention to these cities. Alberto d' Este was ruling in Ferrara; Francesco da Gonzaga in Mantua. It was the Visconti's policy to enfeeble these two princes by causing them to appear odious in the eyes of their subjects.[4] Accordingly he roused the jealousy of the Marquis of Ferrara against his nephew Obizzo to such a pitch that ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... great possessions excite to great alacrity. Usually they enfeeble the sympathies, and ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... the patient to sit up in order to obey the calls of nature, but I am always careful to have the bowels kept reasonably free from costiveness, knowing well how such a state and the efforts it gives rise to enfeeble a ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

... there enter our soul certain parasitic virtues. And renouncement, often, is only a parasite. Even if it do not enfeeble our inward life, it must inevitably bring disquiet. Just as bees cease from work at the approach of an intruder into their hive, so will the virtues and strength of the soul into which contempt or renouncement has entered, forsake all their tasks, and eagerly flock ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... of all this circumscription of woman has been to enfeeble and misdirect her faculties, to weaken the influence of her nature upon society and especially upon her offspring. Driven from the thousand avenues to wealth and position open to man, denied access to the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... invented an instrument consisting of a piece of brass wire rolled round a piece of wood the size of the finger, so as to form a special spring; this grasps the hairs within its turns, and pulls out several at once. No wonder if this practice, continued for several generations, should enfeeble the roots of the beard. Did the practice of eradicating the beard, originate from the design of depriving the enemy of such a dangerous hold on the face? This seems to me probable."—Volney, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... rocks, the old king sent the infant Henry to be nurtured as a peasant-boy, that, by frugal fare and exposure to hardship, he might acquire a peasant's robust frame. He resolved that no French delicacies should enfeeble the constitution of this noble child. Bareheaded and barefooted, the young prince, as yet hardly emerging from infancy, rolled upon the grass, played with the poultry, and the dogs, and the sturdy young mountaineers, and ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... and attention, lay the foundation for their future health and that of their offspring; while by neglect and imprudence in this matter, they may not only enfeeble their constitution, but entail upon their children an inheritance ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... soul is something by which, rightly used, we may grow. There is nothing we need fear to take into our lives, if it receives the right assimilation. Each experience is meant to be a vital accession. We narrow our lives and enfeeble our powers when we try to reject any of these things, or unlawfully escape them, or are yet indifferent to them. Prejudice, cowardice, and ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... their courses could not partake of the head, heart, or hind part of an animal that had been caught in a snare without exposing themselves to a premature death through a kind of rabies. They might not cut or carve salmon, because to do so would seriously endanger their health, and especially would enfeeble their arms for life. And they had to abstain from cutting up the grebes which are caught by the Carriers in great numbers every spring, because otherwise the blood with which these fowls abound would occasion haemorrhage or an unnaturally prolonged flux in the transgressor.[239] ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... no pleasure in religion, not liking to dwell on a loss to them irreparable, in order to drown reflection, betake themselves to worldly pursuits to divert their thoughts and banish gloom. The Christian under the same circumstances does the same thing; but it is from a fear lest he should relax and enfeeble his mind by barren sorrow; from a dread of becoming discontented; from a belief that he is pleasing God better, and is likely to secure his peace more fully, by not losing time; from a feeling that, far from forgetting those whom he has lost by thus acting, he shall only enjoy the thought ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... princess," whispered Lestocq; "show yourself great and firm, else all is lost! Come away from here, that the sight of this child may not yet more enfeeble your heart. Come, much ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... bitterly for having betrayed his country to Demetrius. But he will not be a second time a traitor, and adheres, from principle and against his feelings, to the party which he has once adopted. As the misfortune has happened, he seeks at least to alleviate it, and to enfeeble the power of the Poles. He pays for this effort with his life; but he accepts death as a merited punishment, and confesses this when ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... days of Communion of some pleasures which though harmless in themselves, you know, only too well, enfeeble your devotion, excite your feelings, and leave you weaker than before. Generous means doing over and above what duty ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.



Words linked to "Enfeeble" :   enfeeblement, emaciate, macerate, drain, weaken



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