Word of the Week: stupefy (STŌŌ-pə-fī)

Definition

(Verb) To make stupid or torpid; to deprive of apprehension, feeling, or sensibility; to benumb, deaden.

In Context

“Before the introduction of anaesthesia during the nineteenth century, a mixture of opium and alcohol was extensively used to stupefy surgical patients and to shield them from the pain of operations.”

Martin Plant, Roy Robertson, Moira Plant, and Patrick Miller, Drug Nation: Patterns, Problems, Panics, and Policies, 2011.