the surgery really enervated me for weeks afterwards

a lifetime of working in dreary jobs had enervated his very soul

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb

Such behavior is particularly enervating when the West aims to bring new countries into permanent and universal—that is, Western-style—guarantees of security and systems of relations. I. William Zartman, WSJ, "Kim Jong Un and the Art of the Asian Deal," 24 June 2018

What made West’s increasingly enervated stream of tweets so fascinating was their commitment to a principle of absolute freedom. Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, "Post Malone’s White-Rapper Blues," 7 May 2018

Soderbergh's enervated editing (under his usual alias, Mary Ann Bernard) seldom locates a pulse in the feeble material, let alone one that keeps racing. David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, "'Unsane': Film Review | Berlin 2018," 21 Feb. 2018

Spending lots of time on your back, May has found, is strangely enervating -- and distracting. Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, "Playhouse Square launches national tour of Tony-winner 'Hello Dolly!' starring Betty Buckley," 12 Feb. 2018

Frum has the pamphleteer’s flair for the scathing epithet, which can be energizing or enervating, depending on your tolerance for hyperbole. Jennifer Szalai, New York Times, "Will Democracy Survive President Trump? Two New Books Aren’t So Sure," 10 Jan. 2018

Seemingly immune to political norms, his brassy courting of scandal is frustrating attempts to effectively govern, enervating progress on health care and tax reform. Isobel Thompson, The Hive, "Fear and Loathing on Capitol Hill as Talk Turns to Impeachment," 17 May 2017

Most of the Africans dotted across the asphalt in tents or sprawled on mattresses in the enervating heat of a Roman summer have no permission to be there either. The Economist, "Unwelcome choicesItaly is facing a surge of migration across the Mediterranean," 20 July 2017

Capitalism enriches a society but also risks enervating the senses and the spirit by shrinking human aspirations into material acquisitiveness. Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, "Trump’s Anti-Cairo Speech," 11 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'enervate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.