Meaning

(transitive) To stunt, inhibit (progress, ideas, etc.) or make dull and uninteresting, especially through routine that is overly restrictive or limiting..

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive) To stunt, inhibit (progress, ideas, etc.) or make dull and uninteresting, especially through routine that is overly restrictive or limiting.
2. (transitive, dated) To make useless or worthless.
3. (transitive, dated) To cause to appear foolish; to deprive of strength; to stupefy.
4. (transitive, archaic, originally law) To prove to be of unsound mind or demonstrate someone's incompetence.

Example Sentences

Bureaucracy and over-regulation have stultified the economy.

From the economic point of view, the concentration of future construction into a dozen or so standard classes should be for the good, provided it is not adhered to too rigidly, and allowed to stultify progress in design and further efforts to improve the efficiency of the steam locomotive, which still remains the simplest and most reliable of machines ever invented by man.

I for one find the weekly puzzle plenty big enough to satisfy, and, without a good theme, to stultify.

Robots excel at exactly the repetitive tasks that stultify the human mind and strain the human body.

His business plan was stultified by new technologies.

Here was a disaster—her ingenious scheme completely stultified.

Here is an historical figure whom all men reverence and love, whom some regard as divine; and who was one of us—who lived our life, and taught our doctrine. And now shall we leave him in the hands of his enemies—shall we allow them to stifle and stultify his example?

Though this facility went a long way towards solving the problems of that section of line at the time, its effects were stultified by an out-of-date signalling system and track limitations, especially in the London area.

Word Forms

• stultifies
• stultifying
• stultified

Synonyms for stultify

Related Words

When Should You Use Stultify?

Use stultify when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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