enfeeble

Partisanship, the first president observed, “serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2026

The paradox is that trauma’s lingering impacts can enfeeble human connection, weakening even the strongest of social bonds.

From New York Times ● Jul. 5, 2022

How, in other words, fear and neglect, rather than the waywardness Vogel rails against, are what really enfeeble the mind.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2022

It will forever be the least dangerous branch, but that is no reason to enfeeble it further.

From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2018

"Not only," said he, "are these pleasures fleeting, they are also succeeded by disgust; and while they enfeeble the body they debase the mind."

From Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History by Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

But knowing the hallmarks of classic style will make anyone a better writer, and it is the strongest cure I know for the disease that enfeebles academic, bureaucratic, corporate, legal, and official prose.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Not only does it hasten their decay to allow seeds to ripen, but materially enfeebles the entire plant.

From Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

If this colour is deep, it gives rise to a luminous complementary, such as orange, or yellow, and enfeebles the black; while the other complementaries, such as violet or green, strengthen and purify it.

From Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists by Thomas Salter

The restricted waist will not admit of a full and deep inspiration and so essential is this to health, that abuse in this respect soon enfeebles and destroys the functions of the system.

From A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) by Calvin Cutter

Such protracted tension of the muscles enfeebles their action, and ultimately destroys their power of contraction.

From Popular Education For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes by Ira Mayhew

The former Red Army is in an enfeebled state.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025

She engenders compassion as Elisabeth grapples with her aging body, and a scene where she is enfeebled and struggles to get out of a chair is both achingly painful and achingly funny.

From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2024

Added to this, Congress, which governed India for decades, looks enfeebled and in decline.

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2024

The attacks by the Mossi and Tuareg squeezed the enfeebled Malian Empire from the north and east.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

One historian called Chernenko "an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not."

From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau

His balding head’s scraggly hair—in contrast to the wigs worn by just about every Frenchman at the time, no matter the social class—is both ennobling and a bit enfeebling, like an aging but distinguished mane.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

They fear that the enfeebling of the judiciary will compromise the rule of law and make the economy unattractive for investment.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023

It’s an image that evokes an enfeebling combination of envy and rage, as it becomes increasingly clear that the botters are perpetually one step ahead of our mere keyboards and mouses.

From The Verge ● May 25, 2022

That is, what if books by Coelho, Mitch Albom and others don’t satisfy a market so much as create it, enfeebling their readers while purporting to strengthen them with revelations?

From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2020

Lessing had been the first to break away from an enfeebling imitation of French Sentimentlalism.

From A Short History of Germany by Mary Platt Parmele