stultify means To stunt, inhibit (progress, ideas, etc.) or make dull and uninteresting, especially through routine that is overly restrictive or limiting. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
STULTIFY — [Verb] To cause to appear foolish or to render useless, dull, or ineffective, especially through restrictive routine. From Latin stultus ("stupid, foolish") + -ify (a suffix meaning "to make"). Unlike "stifle," which crushes by force, or "enervate," which drains vitality, to stultify is to atrophy the mind through a deadening, senseless order. It is the soul-numbing protocol of a hundred identical forms, the weary warmth of overheated office air that smells of toner and resignation, and the brilliant talent withering under decades of pedantic supervision—a quiet tragedy where potential is not broken, but gently bored into irrelevance.
verb
- To stunt, inhibit (progress, ideas, etc.) or make dull and uninteresting, especially through routine that is overly restrictive or limiting.“Bureaucracy and over-regulation have stultified the economy.”
- To make useless or worthless.“His business plan was stultified by new technologies.”
- To cause to appear foolish; to deprive of strength; to stupefy.“The politicians continued to stultify themselves.”
- To prove to be of unsound mind or demonstrate someone's incompetence.“And although, as hath been observed, according to the strict rules of law no person is allows to stultify himself, yet it seems that even at law the contracts of idiots and lunaticks, after office found, and the party legally commited, are void […]”