Words / C1

di-BIL-it-ayt/dɪˈbɪlɪteɪt/

To debilitate is to make a person, organisation, or system very weak: debilitate the service, a debilitating cut. Weaken is everyday; dropping the night bus is still a catchment hole, not a tidy saving.

Meaning

To make a person, organisation, or system very weak.

Examples

• “A missing night bus will debilitate the catchment; a caption will not restore it.”
• “Weaken is everyday. Sap is the close twin. A caption is comms. A last-service time is a file. Keep the bus, or name the exclusion; do not baptise the hole as prudence.”

Good to know

Make very weak. Everyday: weaken. A caption ≠ a night bus.

Near in meaning

weaken, sap, enfeeble

New