Question

debilitate verb Debilitate, enfeeble, undermine, and sap all share the general sense "to weaken." But while debilitate holds the distinction among these words of coming from the Latin word for "weak"—debilis—it packs a potent punch. Often used of disease or something that strikes like a disease or illness, debilitate might suggest a temporary impairment—but a pervasive one at that. Enfeeble, a very close synonym of debilitate, connotes a pitiable, but often reversible, condition of weakness and helplessness. Undermine and sap suggest a weakening by something working surreptitiously and insidiously. : to impair the strength of : enfeeble

Accepted Answer

December 28, 2017 dih-BIL-uh-tayt The company offers exercises and writing prompts that promise to help would-be novelists debilitated by writer's block get words onto the page."No matter how much Dolly tries to engineer things in her favor, she's forever an outsider—a widow suffering from, though not debilitated by, loneliness—and the only person who would understand how she feels is her dead husband, Ephraim." — Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 1 May 2017

Word	debilitate
Date	December 28, 2017
Type	verb
Syllables	dih-BIL-uh-tayt
Etymology	Debilitate, enfeeble, undermine, and sap all share the general sense "to weaken." But while debilitate holds the distinction among these words of coming from the Latin word for "weak"—debilis—it packs a potent punch. Often used of disease or something that strikes like a disease or illness, debilitate might suggest a temporary impairment—but a pervasive one at that. Enfeeble, a very close synonym of debilitate, connotes a pitiable, but often reversible, condition of weakness and helplessness. Undermine and sap suggest a weakening by something working surreptitiously and insidiously.
Examples	The company offers exercises and writing prompts that promise to help would-be novelists debilitated by writer's block get words onto the page. "No matter how much Dolly tries to engineer things in her favor, she's forever an outsider—a widow suffering from, though not debilitated by, loneliness—and the only person who would understand how she feels is her dead husband, Ephraim." — Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 1 May 2017
Definition	: to impair the strength of : enfeeble

Debilitate Enfeeble Sap Words Disease Suggest Debilitated December