The Collaborative International Dictionary
Enfeeble \En*fee"ble\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Enfeebled; p. pr. & vb. n. Enfeebling.] [OF. enfeblir, enfeiblir; pref. en- (L. in) + feble, F. faible, feeble. See Feeble.] 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.
--Prescott.
Syn: To weaken; debilitate; enervate.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of enfeeble English)
WordNet
adj. causing debilitation [syn: debilitative, enervating, weakening]
Usage examples of "enfeebling".
Age abates the vigor of the executive faculties, and old people manifest not only bodily infirmities, but the relaxing and enfeebling influences proceeding from the lower portions of the brain.
Perhaps enough has been said to indicate the relaxing and enfeebling tendencies of this region of the brain.
It is an artistic, creative, and aesthetic temperament, beautiful in conception and grand in expression, yet its sensitiveness is enfeebling, and its crowning excellence, when betrayed by the propensities, trails in defilement.
Thus enfeebling the dominion of the senses and the passions over the soul, and as it were freeing the latter from a sordid slavery, and by the steady practice of all the virtues, active and contemplative, our ancient brethren strove to fit themselves to return to the bosom of the Deity.
On the 23d of March 1810 he wrote the following letter to Napoleon:-- If you wish to consolidate the present state of France, to obtain maritime peace, or to attack England with advantage, those objects are not to be obtained by measures like the blockading system, the destruction of a kingdom raised by yourself, or the enfeebling of your allies, and setting at defiance their most sacred rights and the first principles of the law of nations.
It became a creeping disease of the body, enfeebling every function, choking, suffocating.
The Parliamentary gang Governments, that were then in their last stage of ineptitude, were rotten with the perpetual amendment and weakening of measures, with an endless blocking and barring of projects, with enfeebling bargains and blackmailing concessions.
In this respect she had done injustice to his mind, which had been kept in subjection and deprived of its ordinary strength and courage, by the enfeebling fondness of his heart.