Library / English Dictionary

PARALYSE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause to be paralyzed and immobile

Example:

Fear paralyzed her

Synonyms:

paralyse; paralyze

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

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

immobilise; immobilize (cause to be unable to move)

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

palsy (affect with palsy)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make powerless and unable to function

Example:

The bureaucracy paralyzes the entire operation

Synonyms:

paralyse; paralyze

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

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

deactivate; inactivate (make inactive)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

My left arm was numb, as though paralysed, and days passed before I could use it, while weeks went by before the last stiffness and pain went out of it.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The sight seemed to paralyse me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

My refusals were forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralysed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over:—"I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed."

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two great girls who sit on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel—Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yes, I was moved—I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hate—I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my very soul.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I am sure you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of stimulus: any more than I can be content, he added, with emphasis, to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature, that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed—made useless.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)