Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To castrate.
  • transitive verb To deprive of strength or vigor; weaken.
  • adjective Deprived of virility, strength, or vigor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Deprived of the male functions; castrated; hence, unmanned; deprived of vigor.
  • In plant-breeding, to remove the anthers from a hermaphrodite flower in order to prevent self-fertilization. In case of monœcious plants, as Indian corn, the whole male inflorescence is removed. See detasseling.
  • To deprive of the male functions; deprive of virility or procreative power; castrate; geld.
  • To deprive of masculine strength or vigor; weaken; render effeminate; vitiate by unmanly softness.
  • In general, to weaken; destroy the force or strength of; specifically, to weaken or destroy the literary force of, as a book or other writing, by too rigid an expurgation, or by injudicious editing.
  • To become unmanned or effeminate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To deprive of virile or procreative power; to castrate power; to castrate; to geld.
  • transitive verb To deprive of masculine vigor or spirit; to weaken; to render effeminate; to vitiate by unmanly softness.
  • adjective Deprived of virility or vigor; unmanned; weak.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Deprived of virility or vigor; unmanned; weak.
  • verb transitive To deprive of virile or procreative power; to castrate; to geld.
  • verb transitive To deprive of masculine vigor or spirit; to weaken; to render effeminate; to vitiate by unmanly softness.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb remove the testicles of a male animal
  • adjective having unsuitable feminine qualities
  • verb deprive of strength or vigor

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin ēmasculāre, ēmasculāt- : ē-, ex-, ex- + masculus, male, diminutive of mās, male, man.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin emasculō, from e- ("away, out of") + masculus ("male") + (verbal suffix).

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Examples

Comments

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  • "We don't want these days to ever end.

    We just want to emasculate them forever."

    -"Suffer for Fashion," Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

    November 22, 2007