Incapacitate
verb
To make someone or something unable to do or achieve something.
The accident incapacitated him, preventing him from working for a year.
Often appears as...
- incapacitate someone from
- incapacitate someone to
verb
To make someone unable to feel or move.
The snake's venom incapacitated its prey.
Often appears as...
- incapacitate by
- incapacitate with
verb
To make a device or system unable to function.
The virus incapacitated the computer's operating system.
Often appears as...
- incapacitate the system
- incapacitate the device
Usage tips
Technical
verb
To make someone or something unable to do or achieve something.
The accident incapacitated him, preventing him from working for a year.
Often appears as...
- incapacitate someone from
- incapacitate someone to
verb
To make someone unable to feel or move.
The snake's venom incapacitated its prey.
Often appears as...
- incapacitate by
- incapacitate with
verb
To make a device or system unable to function.
The virus incapacitated the computer's operating system.
Often appears as...
- incapacitate the system
- incapacitate the device
Usage tips
Technical
Definition 1 of 3
Pro Tip 1/3Physical Limitation
This meaning often refers to a temporary inability due to an event or condition.
The soldier was incapacitated by the injury during the mission.
Pro Tip 2/3Negative Outcome
The word usually implies a disadvantage or hindrance in achieving goals.
His fear of public speaking incapacitated him during the debate.
Pro Tip 3/3Metaphorical Use
It can be used metaphorically to express being overwhelmed or emotionally affected.
The news of the earthquake incapacitated the whole community with shock.
Compare with
break downcrippledebilitatedisableenfeebleimpairparalyseweaken
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Video examples
What I learned from...
He could come over and help me." We actually practiced incapacitated crew rescue, so he could float me like a blimp and stuff me into the airlock if he had to. I could find my own way back. It's not nearly as big a deal. And actually, if you keep on crying for a while, whatever that gunk was that's in your eye starts to dilute
Video examples
Steve Ramirez and Xu...
Those kinds of fleeting thoughts that physically incapacitate you, that temporarily give you that deer-in-headlights look. However, if you put the mouse in a completely different new box, like the next one, it will not be afraid of this box because there's no reason that it will be afraid of this new environment.
Video examples
Can you solve the wizard...
which means you wouldn’t be a target until the enchantress was incapacitated. But if you succeeded in transforming her, you’d probably be turned into a fish immediately after. If you transformed the sorcerer, the enchantress would almost certainly turn you to stone.
Video examples
People Don’t Listen PIPE...
if this were a real-life horrible situation how would people have fared what everyone have survived probably not they didn't follow instructions if it had been a worst-case scenario and the flight attendants were incapacitated yeah there are people that
Video examples
What happens to your...
Bright zigzagging lines across your field of vision. Sensitivity to light, lingering fatigue, disrupted sleep. A migraine can include any of these symptoms. While an incapacitating headache is one of the most common experiences of migraine,
Video examples
How do fish make...
Like the weakly electric fish, the electric eel uses its signals to navigate and communicate, but it reserves its strongest electric discharges for hunting using a two-phased attack that susses out and then incapacitates its prey.
Video examples
The Killer Rat with...
which they ticked arrows with themselves so that they can use that poison when they're hunting to incapacitate the things that they're hunting. So they would take an arrow, somewhat like this one.
Video examples
Harsh Reality of Saving...
whirling dervish or something but you'll see a ferret just kind of roll around with a prairie dog trying to get the upper hand and get its jaws around its neck and once it becomes incapacitated
Video examples
Kalani Queypo: Playing...
modern world you straddle traditional and modern you you battle with the values of your people of the past and and what's happening right now there's one point where I'm incapacitated and
Video examples
Want to Meet Your...
bipedalism carried with it an enormous price where compassion was what you paid you to give it you simply can't abandon somebody who's incapacitated because the
Video examples
What I learned from...
He could come over and help me." We actually practiced incapacitated crew rescue, so he could float me like a blimp and stuff me into the airlock if he had to. I could find my own way back. It's not nearly as big a deal. And actually, if you keep on crying for a while, whatever that gunk was that's in your eye starts to dilute
Video examples
Steve Ramirez and Xu...
Those kinds of fleeting thoughts that physically incapacitate you, that temporarily give you that deer-in-headlights look. However, if you put the mouse in a completely different new box, like the next one, it will not be afraid of this box because there's no reason that it will be afraid of this new environment.
Video examples
Can you solve the wizard...
which means you wouldn’t be a target until the enchantress was incapacitated. But if you succeeded in transforming her, you’d probably be turned into a fish immediately after. If you transformed the sorcerer, the enchantress would almost certainly turn you to stone.
Video examples
People Don’t Listen PIPE...
if this were a real-life horrible situation how would people have fared what everyone have survived probably not they didn't follow instructions if it had been a worst-case scenario and the flight attendants were incapacitated yeah there are people that
Video examples
What happens to your...
Bright zigzagging lines across your field of vision. Sensitivity to light, lingering fatigue, disrupted sleep. A migraine can include any of these symptoms. While an incapacitating headache is one of the most common experiences of migraine,
Video examples
How do fish make...
Like the weakly electric fish, the electric eel uses its signals to navigate and communicate, but it reserves its strongest electric discharges for hunting using a two-phased attack that susses out and then incapacitates its prey.
Video examples
The Killer Rat with...
which they ticked arrows with themselves so that they can use that poison when they're hunting to incapacitate the things that they're hunting. So they would take an arrow, somewhat like this one.
Video examples
Harsh Reality of Saving...
whirling dervish or something but you'll see a ferret just kind of roll around with a prairie dog trying to get the upper hand and get its jaws around its neck and once it becomes incapacitated
Video examples
Kalani Queypo: Playing...
modern world you straddle traditional and modern you you battle with the values of your people of the past and and what's happening right now there's one point where I'm incapacitated and
Video examples
Want to Meet Your...
bipedalism carried with it an enormous price where compassion was what you paid you to give it you simply can't abandon somebody who's incapacitated because the
Example 1 of 10
Quote examples
Steven Pinker
Canadian Scientist
A decent government with an effective, but not gratuitously violent, police force and a fair court system are essential. This deters and incapacitates psychopaths, bullies and hotheads - and if it earns the confidence of the people, they don't have to become violent in self-defence.
Quote examples
Frances Hesselbein
American Businessman
I lost my son in late 2011. He had been totally incapacitated from his neck down for the last eight years of his life, but his mind was alive and brilliant in those years. He even wrote a book, 'Allegheny Mountain,' lying at home in his hospital bed.
Quote examples
Ruth Rendell
British Writer
Haemophilia itself is bad enough. It is disabling day by day, even if far less incapacitating than in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But the added burden of life-threatening further illnesses from contaminated NHS blood is far worse.
Quote examples
Jenna Wortham
American Journalist
Most times, at the movies, my stress levels are ratcheted up so high that I can barely sit through the full production without excusing myself, clutching people next to me or crawling out of my seat, incapacitated by the unknown.
Quote examples
Glenn Ford
American Actor
An actor would be foolish to do something that might hold up the picture, or more importantly incapacitate him. If an actor does do a stunt he needs to make sure a stunt man stands by to see that it's done correctly.
Quote examples
Dane Cook
American Comedian
I was not a silly kid or outgoing. In fact, I suffered from quite a bit of anxiety. I used to have panic attacks when I was a teenager, really incapacitating moments, because I had some phobias.
Quote examples
Daniel Goleman
American Author
When I say manage emotions, I only mean the really distressing, incapacitating emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes life rich. You need your passions.
Quote examples
Chris Hadfield
Canadian Astronaut
You should have a fear of some things. That doesn't mean it incapacitates you from your ability to figure out a way to deal with it.
Quote examples
Cornelia Parker
English Artist
At times, I've been incapacitated by anxiety and unhappiness. You really know what joy is if you have experienced the opposite.
Quote examples
Helena Bonham Carter
British Actress
Wearing corsets all the time was completely incapacitating, as far as digestion goes.
Quote examples
Steven Pinker
Canadian Scientist
A decent government with an effective, but not gratuitously violent, police force and a fair court system are essential. This deters and incapacitates psychopaths, bullies and hotheads - and if it earns the confidence of the people, they don't have to become violent in self-defence.
Quote examples
Frances Hesselbein
American Businessman
I lost my son in late 2011. He had been totally incapacitated from his neck down for the last eight years of his life, but his mind was alive and brilliant in those years. He even wrote a book, 'Allegheny Mountain,' lying at home in his hospital bed.
Quote examples
Ruth Rendell
British Writer
Haemophilia itself is bad enough. It is disabling day by day, even if far less incapacitating than in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But the added burden of life-threatening further illnesses from contaminated NHS blood is far worse.
Quote examples
Jenna Wortham
American Journalist
Most times, at the movies, my stress levels are ratcheted up so high that I can barely sit through the full production without excusing myself, clutching people next to me or crawling out of my seat, incapacitated by the unknown.
Quote examples
Glenn Ford
American Actor
An actor would be foolish to do something that might hold up the picture, or more importantly incapacitate him. If an actor does do a stunt he needs to make sure a stunt man stands by to see that it's done correctly.
Quote examples
Dane Cook
American Comedian
I was not a silly kid or outgoing. In fact, I suffered from quite a bit of anxiety. I used to have panic attacks when I was a teenager, really incapacitating moments, because I had some phobias.
Quote examples
Daniel Goleman
American Author
When I say manage emotions, I only mean the really distressing, incapacitating emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes life rich. You need your passions.
Quote examples
Chris Hadfield
Canadian Astronaut
You should have a fear of some things. That doesn't mean it incapacitates you from your ability to figure out a way to deal with it.
Quote examples
Cornelia Parker
English Artist
At times, I've been incapacitated by anxiety and unhappiness. You really know what joy is if you have experienced the opposite.
Quote examples
Helena Bonham Carter
British Actress
Wearing corsets all the time was completely incapacitating, as far as digestion goes.
Example 1 of 10
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