benumb

Verb

benumb (third-person singular simple present benumbs, present participle benumbing, simple past and past participle benumbed)

1. (transitive) To make numb, as by cold or anesthetic.
   • […] the sayd Phillip […] in the same his pilgrimage was stricken with such colde, that he fell into a palsey, and was benumbed of the right side of his body.1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC, book II, page [233]
   • […] the Cold was insufferable; nor indeed was it more painful than it was surprising, to come but ten Days before out of the old Castile where the Weather was not only warm but very hot, and immediately to feel a Wind from the Pyrenean Mountains, so very keen, so severely cold, as to be...1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 344
2. (figuratively, transitive) To deaden, dull (the mind, faculties, etc.).
   • […] If this law
     Of nature be corrupted through affection,
     And that great minds, of partial indulgence
     To their benumbed wills, resist the same,
     There is a law in each well-order’d nation
     To curb those raging appetites that are
     Most disobedient and refractory.c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
   • I struggled, and trembled, and was so benumb’d with Terror, that I sunk down, not in a Fit, and yet not myself […]1741, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XI”, in Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: […] C[harles] Rivington, […]; and J. Osborn, […], →OCLC, page 18