Word.ws English Dictionary

numbing

numbing is the present participle and gerund of numb.

Meaning of numb

Verb

numb (third-person singular simple present numbs, present participle numbing, simple past and past participle numbed)

  1. (transitive) To cause to become numb (physically or emotionally).
    • The dentist gave me novocaine to numb my tooth before drilling, thank goodness.
    Synonyms:
    benumb
  2. (transitive) To cause (a feeling) to be less intense.
    • He turned to alcohol to numb his pain.
    Synonyms:
    dull
  3. (transitive) To cause (the mind, faculties, etc.) to be less acute.
    • […] hunger, fatigue, and despairing hopelessness had numbed his brain […]1912, Saki, “The Hounds of Fate”, in The Chronicles of Clovis, London: John Lane, page 219
    Synonyms:
    dull
  4. (intransitive) To become numb (especially physically).
    • […] after fumbling with numbing fingers for ten or fifteen minutes, he waved his hand with a gesture of despair […]1918, Lewis R. Freeman, “Wonders of the Teleferica”, in Many Fronts, London: John Murray, page 270

See all 8 meanings of numb

Noun

numbing

  1. An act by which something is numbed.
    • The numbing of hibakusha reflected a shattering of the psychic forms of the self.2011, Robert Jay Lifton, Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 130

Adjective

numbing (comparative more numbing, superlative most numbing)

  1. That numbs.
    • a numbing pain

Forms of numbing

comparativemore numbing
superlativemost numbing

Words formed from numbing

Phrases with numbing

Questions about numbing

What does numbing mean?
Numbing means an act by which something is numbed.
What is numbing the present participle and gerund of?
Numbing is the present participle and gerund of numb.
What part of speech is numbing?
Numbing can be a noun or an adjective.

Words near numbing in the dictionary

  1. numbeth
  2. numbfish
  3. numbfishes
  4. numbhead
  5. numbheads
  6. numbing
  7. numbing out
  8. numbingly
  9. numbingness
  10. numbish
  11. Numbla Vale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: numbing (page history and authors); numb (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “numbing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/numbing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.