emasculate

That dynamic was taboo for generations of Americans who feared it might emasculate men and ruin couples’ romantic lives.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2025

"You emasculate little boys and who's going to don the next police uniform?" the man had asked.

From Salon ● Jun. 30, 2023

The British attempted to correct the problem by using another lubricant, but Indian troops remained suspicious and some began to believe the British were intentionally using lubricants made of offensive materials to emasculate the sepoys.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

When Martha calls in the local vet to fix some of the tomcats hanging around, Ernest accuses her of trying to emasculate him.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 30, 2018

To admit the principle of gradualism was for Abolition to emasculate itself of its most virile quality.

From William Lloyd Garrison The Abolitionist by Archibald Henry Grimké

“One guy presents himself as a kind of salt of the earth, a person you could hang out with, and then effectively emasculates the other by presenting them as the opposite.”

From New York Times ● Nov. 1, 2020

“I wanted a gender pronoun that was fun, and that immediately emasculates you—because you can’t roll your eyes and say ‘judy’ without being camp,” Mac told the Guardian during the “24-Decade” run.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 20, 2019

Eichhorst thinks he’s won the Lumen, allegedly the key to worldwide vampire eradication, but Palmer publicly emasculates him by yanking funds.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2015

Aftermath has caused a sensation in the United Kingdom because Cusk so devastatingly emasculates her husband.

From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2012

Castration has a strange effect: it emasculates both man, beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of the other sex. 

From The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 by Henry Morley

It seems to me the premise is flawed—that men are either emasculated or overly macho.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

Allow me to weigh in here, given that you mentioned it in your letter: It’s not your job to reduce your life savings or net worth so your husband doesn’t feel threatened or emasculated.

From MarketWatch ● Jan. 22, 2026

“I was so gangster about it and my son felt emasculated and embarrassed. He desperately wanted to have friends and it turned out awful.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2023

It's a truth that should be self-evident: If you are emasculated by a balloon, you weren't so tough to begin with.

From Salon ● Feb. 7, 2023

She got an emasculated carrot, a droopy leaf of celery, a soft tomato and a fresh sprig of parsley.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

Poor Mr. Biswas, a man of meager prospects but irrepressible pride, must suffer through a series of demeaning dwellings to which his in-laws, the emasculating Tulsis, confine him.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026

A new entertainment technology, TV, was emasculating cinema as a cultural force, and film studios had started to fossilize into bottom line-oriented businesses.

From New York Times ● Nov. 28, 2020

Other research shows that American men find environmentalism to be inherently feminine and therefore emasculating, and view being deliberately anti-environmental as a way to feel more masculine.

From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2019

That Young could then defang the Zarathustran Übermensch of its most objectionable connotations, de-masculinize it without emasculating it in the spirit of Emma Goldman, proved an achievement worthy of real potential social value.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2019

Between 1867 and 1871, he pushed himself even harder, growing thousands of hawkweeds in another patch of garden, emasculating the flowers with the same forceps, and dusting pollen with the same paintbrush.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee