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

Ben Berman, a New York City vegan who began a serious weightlifting regimen last year, said he's trying to reappropriate the epithet "soy boy," historically used to emasculate vegan and vegetarian men.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2024

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

Or they came from players, who used the barbs as a way to emasculate or demean the opponents across from them.

From New York Times ● Apr. 23, 2018

The early ceremonials connected with marriage, as Mr Crawley has shown, counteracted to some extent man's ancient fear of woman as the embodiment of a weakness which would emasculate him.

From Taboo and Genetics A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family by Knight, Melvin Moses

“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

How tyranny alters the noblest beings, and emasculates them!

From Rule of the Monk or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century by Garibaldi, Giuseppe

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

He thought that the assertive Congress of the 1970s had gone too far and had emasculated the presidency, making it nearly impossible for the president to get things done.

From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025

“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

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

So expressing gratitude, much less holding women in respect, is experienced as emasculating.

From Salon ● Apr. 8, 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

There is absolutely an alternate universe where Honey Boy—which borrows from the sometimes tender, mostly emasculating nickname that LaBeouf’s James calls his preteen son—isn’t an achievement on multiple fronts.

From Slate ● Nov. 8, 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