benumb
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.
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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
All this Todros heard in a dim and vague way; but it was enough, to benumb his heart, full of petrified faith and pride.
From An Obscure Apostle A Dramatic Story by C. S. de Soissons
Did not the chill Of age, perhaps of death, benumb my limbs, My watchful feet, accustomed to the path, Had led me to the spot.
From Joan of Arc A Play in Five Acts by Jane Alice Sargant
Few laws have ever been passed better calculated than this to harden the heart and benumb the conscience of every man who assists in its execution.
From Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) by Julia Griffiths
The action brought about by its use is simply to benumb the nervous activity and interfere with the natural action of the system to throw off the poison, which is expressed by the chill.
From Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why What Medical Writers Say by Martha Meir Allen
And a humble suggestion for the icy, northwesterly breeze that so often benumbs New York City.
From New York Times ● Dec. 23, 2013
From the arctics and antarctics which they explore, they bring a refrigeration that benumbs artistic sensibilities.
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
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
All this is not necessary; something of the same barbarism benumbs our life which we perceive with astonishment in the time of Christian Garve.
From Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries, Vol. I. by Gustav Freytag
Steinem spoke explicitly about pushing the women’s movement beyond its initial concerns—essentially, the benumbed, unfulfilled flourishing of white middle-class housewives like her own mother.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
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
Britta, a healing practitioner, her entrepreneur husband, Richard, and their young daughter are part of this benumbed society.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2019
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
If Susan Sontag's prose style is laborious, her film making is absolutely benumbing.
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
