Do not use "enervate" when what you mean is "energize". You could unwittingly insult someone if you get this wrong, for instance if you told them a talk they just gave or a class they just taught "enervated" you, for "enervate" means "sap of energy or strength", or, as the OED puts it (with a rather Victorian tone of disapproval of self-indulgence):
"To weaken physically (a person or animal); now only of agencies that impair nervous ‘tone’, as luxury, indolence, hot or malarious climates."
The word comes from the Latin ēnervāre (to extract the sinews of, weaken), from ē out + nervus sinew, and was originally used to mean "cut the hamstrings of a horse". Now, my hamstrings take a beating in my ballet classes, but for all that, I find my classes energizing rather than enervating (probably because of the lack of that character-sapping indolence!).
Somewhere, on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, "enervate" is "annoy", "irritate".
ReplyDeleteI thought it was like that because the light of the centre of the world got tired till it reached its outskirts ...
Apparently, it's the French who use it like that. Or is it my misunderstanding, caused by an homonym ?
Yes, énerver means "annoy" in French. This was a much later development though.
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