debilitating
42
7.5
- adjective
- /dɪˈbɪlɪˌteɪtɪŋ/
- The chronic pain from her illness was debilitating, preventing her from performing daily tasks.
- debilitating effects
- debilitating disease
- chronic and debilitating
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Watch on YouTubeAnd I can't think of a more debilitating emotional state than feeling lost.
- And I can't think of a more debilitating emotional state than feeling lost.
- They had cancer, they had AIDS, they had leukemia, They had debilitating injuries somewhere in wheelchairs.
- Yeah, it depends if it's debilitating, like if it has those sort of effects.
- And then there's like the daily struggle with anxiety, which can be like debilitating, I guess.
- And so I just have a big hole leaking CSF and that was debilitating.
Examples
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And that people just need to accept that they can have serious, debilitating, lifelong mental disorders.
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Ooh, the loss of motor skills is rather debilitating.
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And it has been really debilitating on my physical health.
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A highly effective and debilitating drug.
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This is probably like a very debilitating illness.
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This can be so debilitating for some people but may improve with a lower dose.
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I heard you say in a wonderful talk that you gave that depression is perhaps the most debilitating condition worldwide.
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My next guest, Marissa, says she has suffered from debilitating panic attacks for several years.
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He suffers from debilitating mental illness.
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For most of his adult life, he had endured debilitating illnesses.
Academic text (2008)
Synonyms
32
5.8
Causing very serious harm that makes a person, thing, or plan stop working
6
5.6
Making a person unable to do everyday things because of injury or illness
2
5.1
Make people or things stop working
2
7.0
Causing a person to be unable to move or work
1
9.1
Causing a loss of strength and energy so a person cannot do normal activities
Antonyms
How Debilitating
Surface Forms
Morphology
debilitating = debilitate (transparent) = debilitate + ing
Standard adjectival use of the present-participle '-ing' on the verb 'debilitate' yields the meaning 'causing weakness', which is directly predictable.
Etymology
Debilitating comes from the Latin debilis, meaning 'weak', and the prefix de-, meaning 'down' or 'away'. Think of it with the familiar word able: debilitating is like 'making less able', so it describes something that causes great weakness and stops you doing normal activities.