INFLICT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does inflict mean? 

• INFLICT (verb)
  The verb INFLICT has 1 sense:

1. impose something unpleasant

  Familiarity information: INFLICT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INFLICT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they inflict    ... he / she / it inflicts   
Past simple: inflicted   
Past participle: inflicted   
-ing form: inflicting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Impose something unpleasant

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

bring down; impose; inflict; visit

Context example:

The principal visited his rage on the students

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

communicate; intercommunicate (transmit thoughts or feelings)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "inflict"):

dictate; order; prescribe (issue commands or orders for)

intrude; obtrude (thrust oneself in as if by force)

clamp (impose or inflict forcefully)

give (inflict as a punishment)

foist (to force onto another)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something on somebody

Derivation:

infliction (an act causing pain or damage)

 Context examples 

A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The stab was on the right side of the neck and from behind forward, so that it is almost impossible that it could have been self-inflicted.

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

Damage or trauma inflicted to the eye by external means.

(Ocular Injury, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Self-inflicted tearing or wearing off of skin.

(Excoriation, NCI Thesaurus)

The main distinctive features of regenerative hyperplasia are absence of direct link to tumor progression, and presence of inflammation and necrosis due to the inflicting toxic agent.

(Epithelial Hyperplasia of the Mouse Pulmonary System, NCI Thesaurus/MMHCC)

He walked boldly about the camp, inflicting punishment in the night for what he had suffered in the day.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Damage inflicted on any part of cardiovascular system as the direct or indirect result of an external force, with or without disruption of structural continuity.

(Cardiovascular Injury, NIH CRISP Thesaurus)

M. Waldman inflicted torture when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I had made in the sciences.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Hyde in danger of his life was a creature new to me; shaken with inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of murder, lusting to inflict pain.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The man who had the guilt upon his soul of having brought such a fate upon his own family might well be driven by remorse to inflict it upon himself.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)