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Stultify   /stˈəltəfˌaɪ/   Listen
Stultify

verb
(past & past part. stultified; pres. part. stultifying)
1.
Prove to be of unsound mind or demonstrate someone's incompetence.
2.
Cause to appear foolish.
3.
Deprive of strength or efficiency; make useless or worthless.  Synonym: cripple.  "Their behavior stultified the boss's hard work"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Stultify" Quotes from Famous Books



... a way, an honest man. We can say that of him. Voltaire was, in his degree, honest too. Having said what M. Renan says, they did not stultify themselves logically. They honestly pronounced Christianity a delusion. We have respect for their consistency. But our modern man says that a cheat in religion is no cheat, a lie no lie, that a true saving faith can be built on a foundation of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... you to let it take its chance. The book isn't worth special notice, and whoever undertook to review it for Fadge would either have to lie, or stultify ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... elderly dog to sit up and beg, or to roll over twice, or to do other of the asinine things with which humans stultify the natural good sense of their canine chums, is as hard as to teach a sixty-year-old grave-digger to become ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... told that the marriage of the hero is an indispensable condition of achieving the Quest, a detail which must have been taken over from an earlier version, as Gerbert proceeds to stultify himself by describing the solemnities of the marriage, and the ceremonial blessing of the nuptial couch, after which hero and heroine simultaneously agree to live a life of strict chastity, and are rewarded by the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... Virginia as a new State, not by virtue of any provision of the Constitution but under our absolute power which the laws of war give us in the circumstances in which we are placed. I shall vote for this bill upon that theory, and upon that alone. I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant in the Constitution for ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... life of the world, with my wife and my progeny; the clumsy conventional expensive materialised vulgarised brutalised life of London. We've got everything handsome, even a carriage—we're perfect Philistines and prosperous hospitable eminent people. But, my dear fellow, don't try to stultify yourself and pretend you don't know what we haven't got. It's bigger than all the rest. Between artists—come!" the Master wound up. "You know as well as you sit there that you'd put a pistol-ball into your brain if you had written ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James

... it, and while no rivalry existed among them, save in the case of the two older men, it was certain that the eldest of the four would not lose his hold on his own theory, or be at very vital pains to stultify it. All, however, were fully conscious of the danger before them, and Frith, from the first, directed that none was to work alone, either in the Grey ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... have the profound satisfaction, which is not quite a matter of course in the history of literature, of finding after all that the woman and the writer were one. The life does not belie the books, nor private conduct stultify public profession. We close the third volume of the biography, as we have so often closed the third volume of her novels, feeling to the very core that in spite of a style that the French call alambique, in spite of tiresome double and treble distillations of phraseology, in spite of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley

... unconsciously, moving along a course of their own, in which they might be helped a little, or hindered a little, by outsiders, but from which they will not in the long run be turned aside. Yet such a movement, if it is really proceeding, will obviously stultify the most well-intentioned schemes that are not in accordance ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... the future. I believe the human race is improving, despite the disadvantageous surroundings and conditions which hamper honest effort and stultify truth. A higher efficiency is the goal, and the intention is to obtain this desideratum by fair and by just means. There is an awakening, an unrest, a groping for knowledge in almost every field of human endeavor, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... of the metaphysical polity is equality, and, like the other dogma, it must be considered the temporary expression of a temporary need. It is indeed a corollary of the dogma of liberty of conscience; for to assume liberty of conscience without equality of intelligence would be to stultify the assumption. Having achieved its purpose, it also became an obstacle in the path of progress. Equality sufficient to permit a man to use his faculties aright is allowed by all; but men cannot be made equal physically, and much less ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... difference of opinion as to the commercial value of the great asset which he has established for the Companies, in so completely winning the confidence of the people at large as well as those who hold high positions of trust. We should stultify ourselves were we to take any such stand, for the profits of the Companies are an irrefutable argument. The question before us, then, is not one of fact, but rather of degree. Why should we spend these further millions to gain that which ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... to the padres and their guest consisted of as many plats as a first-class hotel in Paris usually supplies, and cooked with nearly as much skill, though the surroundings were by no means equal. I feel assured also that the padres, besides being tasteful in their potages and entrees, do not stultify their ideas for lack of that element which Horace, Hafiz, and Byron have praised so much. The champagne—think of champagne Cliquot in East Africa!—Lafitte, La Rose, Burgundy, and Bordeaux were of first-rate ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... him to dinner, but it won't do. I should be interrupted by business, of course. The construction of a contract that will suit Paige's lawyer (not Paige) turns out to be very difficult. He is embarrassed by earlier advice to Paige, and hates to retire from it and stultify himself. The negotiations are being conducted, by means of tedious long telegrams and by talks over the long-distance telephone. We ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... quarrelled, moreover, every one of them, before getting their stuff—such as it was—to the boats. Now, if you will permit me to say so, your own success—when you obtain it— will be a fluke and an absurd fluke. It will stultify every rule of precaution and violate every law of chance. I have studied this game for close upon twenty years, and reduced it almost to mathematics; and I foresee that you will play—nay, you have already played— ninepins with my most ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... Petersburg, and Lady N. at Vienna! There would have been no bluster, no rudeness, no bullying—none of that blundering about declining a Congress to-day because a Congress "ought to follow a war," and proposing one to-morrow, "to prevent a war." Women despise logic, and consequently would not stultify it. A temperance apostle is not likely to adulterate the liquor that he does not drink; and for this reason, female intelligence would have escaped this "muddle." Her Ladyship would have thrown her blandishments ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... deciding on a name for him. Stella suggested Tiny, on account of his size. I pointed out that time might stultify this selection of ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay

... diseases not only renders them guilty of homicide, but also imperils the welfare of the whole community; Suffragists who defy all law comprehensively, on the ground that the legislature from which it emanates is not constituted as they think it ought to be; Trade Unionists who combine to stultify any Act of Parliament which conflicts with the rules of their own organizations; and finally, a No-Conscription Fellowship whose members expressly "deny the right of Government to say, 'You shall bear arms,'" and threaten to "oppose every effort to introduce compulsory ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw

... was lawful, virginity was a higher state; that is, to be perfect, a woman must stultify her nature and trample upon her maternal instincts. It also implies that she is essentially impure, and that she can only please God by abnegating her sex. This is the deepest disrespect of womanhood, as every healthy wife ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... from this assurance that God will not stultify Himself by giving to us a revelation that does not reveal, is, 'Take heed how ye hear.' The effort will not be in vain. Patient attention will ever be rewarded. The desire to learn will not be frustrated. In this school truth lightly won is truth loosely held; and only the attentive ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... system. Wherever party government is strong, each party nominates only one candidate, owing to the danger of splitting up its votes and so losing the seat. The elector has then practically no choice. He may disapprove of the candidate standing for his own party, but the only alternative is to stultify himself by supporting the opposing candidate. If in disgust he abstains from voting altogether, it is the same as giving each candidate half his vote. Even when two or three candidates of his own party ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... have been a great success, as it was endorsed by all of the League magnates, by the press generally, and by the lovers of base-ball all over the country, but to me it appeared to be something too much in the nature of a charity gift for me to accept, and I felt that I should stultify my manhood by so doing, and that I should sacrifice that feeling of independence that I had always possessed. To the many friends who urged it upon me at the time I am still deeply grateful, but I feel that in declining ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... representatives; that, almost as a consequence of human average depravity, the greater the franchise's extension, the worse in all ways become those who impersonate the enfranchised; and so, after due condemnation of Whiggery, to stultify Chartism, and that demoralizing lie, the ballot. Then as to the squire's religion; and certain confabulations with his parson, his household, his harvest-home tenantry, and local preachers of dissent and schism; his creed, practice, and favourable samples of daily ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... and everything surely will occur as He has foreseen it. This is true of the thoughts, volitions, and acts of all His creatures. He would not be God if there were any power not derived from, or supplied by Him, or if the actual course of events could annul His decrees and stultify His knowledge. Also the devils and the wicked ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente



Words linked to "Stultify" :   poke fun, roast, blackguard, prove, make fun, guy, jurisprudence, show, stultification, ridicule, laugh at, demonstrate, law, shew, establish, weaken, jest at, rib



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