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  1. cauterize love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To burn or sear with a cautery.
  2. v. To deaden, as to feelings or moral scruples; callous.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To burn or sear with fire or a hot iron, or with caustics, as morbid flesh.
  2. To sear, in a figurative sense.

Wiktionary

  1. v. To burn, sear, or freeze tissue using a hot iron, electric current or a caustic agent.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To burn or sear with a cautery or caustic.
  2. v. To sear, as the conscience.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. burn, sear, or freeze (tissue) using a hot iron or electric current or a caustic agent
  2. v. make insensitive or callous; deaden feelings or morals

Etymologies

  1. From Middle French cauteriser, from Late Latin cauterizare ("to burn with a hot iron"), from Ancient Greek καυτηριάζω (kautēriazō, "to brand"), from καυτήρ (kautēr, "branding iron"), from καίειν (kaiein, "to burn"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English cauterizen, from Late Latin cautērizāre, to cauterize, brand, from Latin cautērium, cautery; see cautery. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to "cauterize" the records of potentially embarrassing information.”

    Nice Deb

  • “Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to 'cauterize' the records of potentially embarrassing information.”

    Latest Articles

  • “He was using it to cauterize little capillaries that were sprouting in the inner chest.”

    Simon & Schuster: Manifesting Michelangelo

  • “For though I may have been able to cheat it, in the end the comfort gained could well cauterize the wound of love, and limp the iron endurance required of a courier.”

    Mandala « A Fly in Amber

  • “We must get stuff out into the open, tear the scab off this wound, apply a stinging astringent to it, and cauterize it with a blowtorch.”

    The Huffington Post: Silpa Kovvali: Tiger Brother: An Interview With Wesley Yang

  • “The rain cannot cauterize the burning, the flames that engulf my skin.”

    ASTRUM EXURO • by Rhiannon Morgan

  • “Like a knife slash, we can cauterize and stitch up the cut, stopping the bleeding -- but we still have to wait to find out just how deep and lasting the scar that forms will be.”

    The Huffington Post: Daniel Dicker: Economic Wounds of the Debt Debate Won't Heal Quickly

  • “By doing this, we cauterize ourselves from the full range of what it means to be human, effectively castrated from all but the most superficial feelings.”

    Society and Death « Colleen Anderson

  • “By cauterizing the public access to signature signers he will turn around and cauterize the ballot process from being used as weapons against groups of people.”

    McKenna’s SCOTUS Brief is Poorly Written « PubliCola

  • “It uses ultrasound to detect internal injuries such as torn arteries (by spotting the flow of blood), then focuses much more powerful beams of ultrasound onto the injured tissue to cook it (oh, all right, “cauterize” it), sealing the tear.”

    Ten sci-fi gadgets that may soon be real: Part 1

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hypernyms (5)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. care for
  1. treat
  1. harden
  1. indurate
  1. inure

reverse dictionary (6)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. cauterisation
  1. ensear
  1. burn
  1. fire
  1. sear
  1. diacaustic

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‘cauterize’ has been looked up 2299 times, loved by 3 people, added to 32 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 20.