numb

Unable to feel touch, pain, or temperature in a part of your body.

• My fingers are numb.
• His leg went numb after he sat on it.
• Is your mouth still numb from the dentist's injection?

How to use it: numb with something (My feet were numb with cold.); go numb (Her hand went numb after the injection.)

Similar words: insensitive, without feeling

Common phrases: numb fingers, go numb, numb with cold

Unable to feel emotions or react normally, often because of a terrible experience.

• I felt numb after the news.
• She was numb with shock when the police arrived.
• Months of worry had left him emotionally numb.

How to use it: numb with something (They stood numb with grief after hearing the news.)

Similar words: unfeeling, stunned

Common phrases: feel numb, numb with shock, emotionally numb

To make a body part unable to feel, or make someone unable to react emotionally.

• The cold numbed my hands.
• The dentist will numb your mouth before starting.
• The terrible news numbed her for several hours.

Similar words: deaden, anesthetize

Common phrases: numb the skin, numb someone's mouth, numb someone's fingers

To make pain or a strong feeling less powerful.

• The medicine numbed the pain.
• He drank to numb his grief.
• Keeping busy helped numb her feelings of loneliness.

Similar words: dull, deaden, blunt

Opposites: intensify, heighten

Common phrases: numb the pain, numb someone's grief, numb a feeling