EMACIATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does emaciate mean? 

• EMACIATE (verb)
  The verb EMACIATE has 2 senses:

1. cause to grow thin or weak

2. grow weak and thin or waste away physically

  Familiarity information: EMACIATE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EMACIATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they emaciate    ... he / she / it emaciates   
Past simple: emaciated   
Past participle: emaciated   
-ing form: emaciating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause to grow thin or weak

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

emaciate; macerate; waste

Context example:

The treatment emaciated him

Hypernyms (to "emaciate" is one way to...):

debilitate; drain; enfeeble (make weak)

Cause:

emaciate (grow weak and thin or waste away physically)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

emaciation (extreme leanness (usually caused by starvation or disease))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Grow weak and thin or waste away physically

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Context example:

She emaciated during the chemotherapy

Hypernyms (to "emaciate" is one way to...):

change state; turn (undergo a transformation or a change of position or action)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

emaciation (extreme leanness (usually caused by starvation or disease))

 Context examples 

Strange hardships, I imagine—poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The sweet girl welcomed me with warm affection, yet tears were in her eyes as she beheld my emaciated frame and feverish cheeks.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He was clad in rags, was very emaciated, and bore every trace of prolonged hardship.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was deadly pale and terribly emaciated, with the protruding, brilliant eyes of a man whose spirit was greater than his strength.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Deep down in the recesses of the coffin lay an emaciated figure.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She soon became interested in her work, for her emaciated purse grew stout, and the little hoard she was making to take Beth to the mountains next summer grew slowly but surely as the weeks passed.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She bore upon her aquiline and emaciated face the traces of some recent tragedy.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Their embrace was but for an instant, however, for the younger man seized the woman and pushed her out of the room, while the elder easily overpowered his emaciated victim, and dragged him away through the other door.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)