Definition of "inure"

inure

/ɪˈnjʊə/

verb
third-person singular simple present inures, present participle inuring, simple past and past participle inured
1. (transitive) To cause someone to become accustomed to something that requires prolonged or repeated tolerance of one or more unpleasantries.
  Quotations
  Matcht with as valiant men, and of as cleane a might, / As skilfull to commaund, and as inur’d to fight.
  1612, Michael Drayton, chapter 12, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great Britaine, […], London: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes; I. Browne; I. Helme; I. Busbie, published 1613, page 196
  To none of these evidences of a fearful tragedy of a long dead day did little Tarzan give but passing heed. His wild jungle life had inured him to the sight of dead and dying animals, and had he known that he was looking upon the remains of his own father and mother he would have been no more greatly moved.
  1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co.; republished as chapter 6, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June,
  Your insults to myself can be endured, / I am a philosopher and am inured. / But there are insults that I will not swallow / That you have levelled at our gods.
  1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 465
  As Tom Paine warned, inuring us to lies lays the groundwork for many other evils.
  1996, Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
  Young people all across the continent were inured to a level of public brutality, in words and actions, that would have shocked their nineteenth-century forebears.
  2005, Tony Judt, “Culture Wars”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010
  This conflict produces a psychic numbing that inures us to the realities of being tracked, parsed, mined, and modified.
  2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 1, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
  “Our kids have come to a place where they’re inured,” he said. “It’s almost like they accept it, which is not OK.”
  2023 September 26, Heather Knight, quoting Daniel Lurie, “Levi Strauss Heir to Challenge Mayor London Breed of San Francisco”, in The New York Times‎
2. (intransitive, chiefly law) To take effect, to be operative.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To commit.
  Quotations
  He […] gan that ladie strongly to appele / Of many haynous crymes by her enured.
  1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, page 39

Definition of "inure"

inure

verb

Quotations

Quotations