devitalize

From de- + vitalize.

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devitalize (third-person singular simple present devitalizes, present participle devitalizing, simple past and past participle devitalized)

1. (literal, figurative, transitive) To deprive of vitality; to make lifeless; to weaken.

   Antonyms: animate, reanimate, rejuvenate, revitalize, vitalize

   Coordinate terms: dispirit, kill

   Near-synonym: deanimate

   Noncrushing surgical clamps avoid devitalizing the cells of arterial walls.

   Economic stress has devitalized some shopping malls in the web era.

   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 126:

     Not so long ago a Scotsman is reported to have exhumed the body of his daughter and burnt her heart, as he thought she was devitalising her remaining brother and sister and making them ill.

• devitalization