enervate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ēnervātus (“weakened”),^[2][3][4][5] the past participle of ēnervō (“to cut the sinews of, weaken”),^[6][7][8] formed from ē- (“out”) and nervus (“sinew”), the source of nerve,^{[6][7][9][10]} from Proto-Indo-European *(s)neu- (“tendon, sinew”).^[2][9] Barnhart thinks the verb probably developed from the adjective, with enervation a possible source of it in some uses.^[7] It replaced the earlier verb enerve,^[11] from Middle English enerven,^[12][2] and Dictionary.com compares Anglo-Norman enervir and French énerver.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To destroy the force of an argument or a doctrine: 1565, in T. Dorman's reply to Nowell.^[6] The sense "to weaken physically" follows in 1572.^[6] These dates, from the OED, are earlier than those of other dictionaries: Merriam-Webster Unabridged has the verb from 1605 and the adjective from 1603,^[3] Barnhart the verb from 1610, in Donne,^[7] and Etymonline the verb from about 1600.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The first English records apply the word to arguments and authority as much as to bodies.^[6] From 1603, in P. Holland's Plutarch, it was used of mental or moral weakening, especially by luxury, and the adjective appears in the same text for a feeble, spiritless character.^[6] The literal Latin sense came later: "to emasculate" in 1610 and "to cut the tendons of, to hamstring a horse" from 1638 to 1728.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to weaken; to deprive of force; to emasculate", with Bacon on empires and Locke on softness.^[13] The OED says the later use was influenced by the modern sense of nerve, and that the physical sense now applies only to things that impair nervous tone, such as idleness or a hot climate.^[6] The use against arguments lasted until 1836.^[6] Medicine now also has it for removing a nerve or part of one.^[9]

Timeline

• 1565 – verb, to destroy the force of an argument or doctrine (obsolete after 1836).^[6]
• 1572 – verb, to weaken a person or animal physically.^[6]
• 1593 – verb, to disparage the power or value of something (obsolete after 1656).^[6]
• 1603 – verb, to weaken mentally or morally; adjective, feeble, spiritless.^[6][3]
• 1610 – verb, to emasculate (obsolete).^[6]
• 1638 – verb, to cut the tendons of, to hamstring (obsolete after 1728).^[6]
• before 1704 – adjective, of artistic style, lacking vigour.^[6]
• 1706 – adjective, lacking bodily strength.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take away physical strength or vitality; to debilitate or enfeeble: The humid afternoon enervated the hikers.^[14][3][6]
2. To weaken a person or group mentally or morally: Years of comfort had enervated the old court.^[3][6][15]
3. (medicine) To remove a nerve or part of one.^[9]
4. (obsolete, 1638–1728) To cut the tendons of; to hamstring.^[6][15][3]
5. (obsolete, 1565–1836) To destroy the force of an argument or authority.^[6][15]

Adjective

1. Deprived of strength; weakened.^[14][9][6]
2. Lacking vigour of character or artistic style; spiritless.^[6][15]
3. (botany) Having no rib or vein.^[6]

Word family

• enervation
• enervative
• enervator
• enervatingly

Related words

• nerve
• energize
• innervate

Usage notes

The OED notes that the verb was usually stressed on the second syllable in the 17th and 18th centuries,^[6] as Johnson marks it.^[13] The adjective keeps that stress, unlike the verb.^[14][6] Dictionary.com lists it among words confused with energize, innervate and invigorate.^[5]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press