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.
See Examples For:
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
A great horror seemed to come upon him and benumb his body and his senses.
From Frank Merriwell Down South by Burt L. Standish
Most popular "Cough-Cures" benumb the upper throat and stop the tickling; smother the symptoms without touching the cause.
From Preventable Diseases by Woods Hutchinson
And now she knew that the children were safe, the unexpectedness of it, the amazement of the whole thing, seemed almost to benumb her senses.
From The Island House A Tale for the Young Folks by F. M. (Frederic Morell) Holmes
I say, with all the resolution, with all the exertion of every one of those good feelings which you would sear and benumb.
From The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts by Augustus William Iffland
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
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
What assaults the eye often benumbs the brain, but now all the networks are doing the same.
From Time Magazine Archive
Indolence benumbs his feeble intellect, and inflames his passions.
From Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject by E. N. Elliott
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
You wonder if the sudden exposure to so much warmth and acceptance has sent her into shock, or if any feeling has even managed to penetrate her benumbed state.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 7, 2018
He continued to swim in Dumbledore’s wake, the tips of his benumbed fingers brushing the rough, wet rock.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
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
Instead of that benumbing, step-by-step chronology to which so many earnest biographers undiscriminatingly consign everything from laundry bills to emotional crises, Edel weaves back and forth in time and subject like a novelist.
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
