Pronounced: bah-LEH-tuh-mane, noun
Notes: Not what I thought after seeing the pronunciation
Yesterday’s word
The word enervate means, as a verb, “to deprive of strength or vitality”. As an adjective, it means “deprived of strength; weakened”
First usage
Our word came into English in the early 1600s
Background / Comments
For a long time, I thought our word meant something like “to get up the nerve (to)”. Our word came from the Latin word enervare (to weaken), which is made of ex- (out) and nervus (sinew).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 