stultify

stultify (STUHL-tuh-feye) - v., to make (someone), or cause (someone) to appear, foolish or ridiculous; to make (something/someone) ineffective esp. by degrading or frustrating means, to have an dulling or inhibiting effect on.


So not so much to bore, as I sometimes think, but the effects of that boredom. Borrowed in the 1760s from Latin stultificāre, to make foolish or stupid, from stultus, stupid/foolish.

---L.