stultify

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   prove to be of unsound mind or demonstrate someone's incompetence

   nobody is legally allowed to stultify himself

2. 2
   verb

   To stunt, inhibit (progress, ideas, etc.) or make dull and uninteresting, especially through routine that is overly restrictive or limiting.

   Bureaucracy and over-regulation have stultified the economy.

3. 3
   verb

   To make useless or worthless.

   His business plan was stultified by new technologies.

4. 4
   verb

   To cause to appear foolish; to deprive of strength; to stupefy.

   The politicians continued to stultify themselves.

5. 5
   verb

   To prove to be of unsound mind or demonstrate someone's incompetence.

   And although, as hath been observed, according to the strict rules of law no person is allows to stultify himself, yet it seems that even at law the contracts of idiots and lunaticks, after office found, and the party legally commited, are void […]

6. 6
   verb

   deprive of strength or efficiency

7. 7
   verb

   cause to appear foolish

Etymology

From Latin stultus (“stupid, foolish”), + -ify. Compare Late Latin stultificō.