stultify

verb

1. (transitive)To stunt, inhibit (progress, ideas, etc.) or make dull and uninteresting, especially through routine that is overly restrictive or limiting.

   “Bureaucracy and over-regulation have stultified the economy.”

   “From the economic point of view, the concentration of future construction into a dozen or so standard classes should be for the good, provided it is not adhered to too rigidly, and allowed to stultify progress in design and further efforts to improve the efficiency of the steam locomotive, which still remains the simplest and most reliable of machines ever invented by man.”

   “I for one find the weekly puzzle plenty big enough to satisfy, and, without a good theme, to stultify.”

   “Robots excel at exactly the repetitive tasks that stultify the human mind and strain the human body.”

2. (dated, transitive)To make useless or worthless.

   “His business plan was stultified by new technologies.”

   “Here was a disaster—her ingenious scheme completely stultified.”

   “Here is an historical figure whom all men reverence and love, whom some regard as divine; and who was one of us—who lived our life, and taught our doctrine. And now shall we leave him in the hands of his enemies—shall we allow them to stifle and stultify his example?”

   “Though this facility went a long way towards solving the problems of that section of line at the time, its effects were stultified by an out-of-date signalling system and track limitations, especially in the London area.”

3. (dated, transitive)To cause to appear foolish; to deprive of strength; to stupefy.

   “The politicians continued to stultify themselves.”

   “Was the House to stultify itself by agreeing to the opposite principles of these opposed Bills?”

   “At breakfast, and while they were packing the few remaining articles, he showed his weariness from the night’s effort so unmistakeably that Tess was on the point of revealing all that had happened; but the reflection that it would anger him, grieve him, stultify him, to know that he had instinctively manifested a fondness for her of which his common-sense did not approve, that his inclination had compromised his dignity when reason slept, again deterred her.”

   “The presence of a woman stultified the poor fellow, who was driven by passion on the one hand as violently as the lack of ideas, resulting from his education, held him back on the other. Paralyzed between these opposing forces, he had not a word to say, and feared to be spoken to, so much did he dread the obligation of replying.”

   “If they had been at home, settled at Lowick in ordinary life among their neighbors, the clash would have been less embarrassing: but on a wedding journey, the express object of which is to isolate two people on the ground that they are all the world to each other, the sense of disagreement is, to say the least, confounding and stultifying.”

4. (archaic, transitive)To prove to be of unsound mind or demonstrate someone's incompetence.

   “And although, as hath been observed, according to the strict rules of law no person is allows to stultify himself, yet it seems that even at law the contracts of idiots and lunaticks, after office found, and the party legally commited, are void […]”