incapacitate
Americanverb (used with object)
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incapacitates,
present (3rd person singular)
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incapacitated,
past participle, past
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incapacitating
present participle
verb
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to deprive of power, strength, or capacity; disable
-
to deprive of legal capacity or eligibility
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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incapacitatesimple
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incapacitatessimple
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have incapacitatedperfect
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has incapacitatedperfect
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am incapacitatingprogressive
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are incapacitatingprogressive
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is incapacitatingprogressive
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have been incapacitatingperfect progressive
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has been incapacitatingperfect progressive
Past
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incapacitatedsimple
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had incapacitatedperfect
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was incapacitatingprogressive
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were incapacitatingprogressive
-
had been incapacitatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of incapacitate
First recorded in 1650–60; incapacit(y) + -ate 1
Explanation
If you are incapacitated, you can’t do what you normally do, what you’re being asked to do — or perhaps, much of anything. To incapacitate someone is to cause him or her to be unable to function normally, like a bad cold that incapacitates you. The verb incapacitate is related to the word capacity. Capacity comes from the Latin word capacitas, meaning “that can contain,” or how much something — brain, bucket or otherwise — can hold. The prefix in- reverses the meaning and when the suffix -ate is added, incapacitate means someone has been made unable to “contain” much — like attention, effort, or energy.
Vocabulary lists containing incapacitate
Uglies
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Children of Blood and Bone
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Artemis Fowl
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Viruses that are extremely lethal often tend to self-contain because they quickly kill or incapacitate their hosts,” said James, who now works with Australia’s Southern Cross University.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Officer 4 said doing so would have been difficult and more likely to put himself and his colleague at risk by failing to incapacitate Bosh.
From BBC ● Mar. 17, 2026
Electroshock weapons are designed to temporarily incapacitate suspects with a shock before police detain them.
From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026
Police department officials have said repeatedly that, despite increased crisis intervention training and new “less-lethal” weapons designed to incapacitate rather than kill, officers are not always equipped to handle mental health calls.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2025
While it did not incapacitate the president, it did weaken him and, according to his cabinet, made him even more irascible.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
You know, that thing that occasionally incapacitates him with guilt.
From Salon ● May 15, 2023
Unless boxers are allowed to fight until one physically incapacitates the other — which is the way they actually competed at the ancient Olympic Games in 688 B.C. — decisions are an unfortunate necessity.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 1, 2021
“Most experts agree that if a GMD or EMP incapacitates an electrical grid, the grid will likely remain in a failed state from weeks to months,” the report said.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 5, 2018
Effective to a range of 30 feet, the Alternative incapacitates a person but would very rarely penetrate the skin, he said, citing ballistics tests using leather chamois, foam and gel to simulate the human body.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 3, 2015
It is excess of strength which hurts, not weakness which incapacitates; he is injured by the undue prevalence of the good principle, not by its defect.
From A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen and on the characteristics of Shakspere's style and the secret of his supremacy by William Spalding
Related: ‘We fear financial exploitation’: Who will manage our finances if my wife and I become incapacitated?
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026
“He’s been incapacitated from the moment he left the field, and with no chance of recovering,” said Carey, who added that he is limited on what he has been authorized to discuss concerning Mayich’s condition.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026
Ford’s side denied he was incapacitated and refused a cognitive test, the court documents say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
In the event that the president dies or is incapacitated, Vice-President JD Vance would take power, followed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
If Gaea was that powerful, and she had an army of giants at her side, Percy didn’t see how seven demigods could stop her, especially when most of the gods were incapacitated.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
The Timms report finds that there’s been a surge in Brits under age 40 collecting benefits for incapacitating ADHD, autism, anxiety or depression.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
CS spray is a man-made incapacitating gas - exposure to it causes a burning sensation in the eyes and watering.
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2026
The findings show the spike design to be extremely effective at damaging the virus' external structure and piercing its membranes, incapacitating 96% of viruses that came into contact with the surface within six hours.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 26, 2024
"It looks like a focal neurologic event. That doesn't mean it's incapacitating, it doesn't mean he can't serve, but it means that somebody ought to wake up and say, 'Wow! This looks like a seizure.'"
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2023
This represents the kinds of things that must be done after the fact, in efforts to compensate for the incapacitating effects of certain diseases whose course one is unable to do very much about.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
