emasculate
emasculate Lexical Profile
emasculate Game Scores & Validity
• verb
To deprive a man of his male role, identity, or sense of virility and confidence.
"He felt that his supervisor's constant public criticism was intended to emasculate him in front of his peers."
To make something weaker or less effective; to deprive a law, organization, or text of its force or vigor.
"The last-minute amendments threatened to emasculate the environmental protection bill."
To castrate a male animal or person, or to remove the anthers from a flower bud to prevent self-pollination.
"Plant breeders carefully emasculate the blossoms before introducing pollen from the selected parent strain."
• adjective
Deprived of vigor, strength, or effectiveness; weakened or effeminate.
"The critic dismissed the heavily edited adaptation as an emasculate version of a once-bold novel."
Castrated; having the male reproductive organs removed (including in botany, having the anthers or stamens removed).
"In hybrid seed production, the emasculate flowers are carefully pollinated by hand."
Word Nuance & Usage
As a verb, 'emasculate' ends with a long 'a' sound (/ɪˈmæskjʊleɪt/), whereas the less common adjective form ends with a reduced schwa sound (/ɪˈmæskjʊlət/). In modern usage, the figurative sense of weakening a policy, institution, or person's confidence is far more common than the literal sense of castration.
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the early 17th century from Latin 'emasculatus', the past participle of 'emasculare' ('to castrate'), formed from 'e-' (a variant of 'ex-', meaning 'out of' or 'away') and 'masculus' ('male', a diminutive of 'mas').