stultify

verb

stul·ti·fy ˈstəl-tə-ˌfī

stultified; stultifying

transitive verb

: to have a dulling or inhibiting effect on

: to impair, invalidate, or make ineffective : negate

: to cause to appear or be stupid, foolish, or absurdly illogical

archaic : to allege or prove to be of unsound mind and hence not responsible

stultification

ˌstəl-tə-fə-ˈkā-shən

noun

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Foolish or absurd behavior often makes us laugh. Take the 2006 comedy film Idiocracy, for instance, which depicts the United States in a dystopian future stultified by centuries of anti-intellectualism and crass commercialism. This description of the movie showcases one sense of stultify, “to cause to appear or be stupid, foolish, or absurdly illogical.” But there is nothing especially funny about the now-archaic original usage of the word. In mid-1700s legal contexts, if you stultified yourself, you claimed to be of unsound mind and thus not responsible for your actions. Nor is there humor in the most common current meaning of stultify, which refers to rendering someone or something dull or ineffective.

Examples of stultify in a Sentence

The government has been stultified by bureaucracy.

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

The New York Review of Books commented on that thesis, contending that men—mainly white and black—avoided work because the jobs were low-paid and stultifying. —Peter Georgescu, Forbes, 5 May 2023 The sudden mass switch to virtual forms of working and socializing is expected to jump-start more nuanced investigations into what makes social interaction satisfying—or stultifying. —Lydia Denworth, Scientific American, 1 July 2020