Definition of "stultifying"

Indeed, the government’s stultifying response betrays an attitude reminiscent of the old mission vicar: only we know what’s really good for them (see Scullion above).

2017 October 27, Paul Daley, “The whole recognition process has a deep colonial resonance”, in The Guardian‎

The Judge was from an era when a person could get away with being larger than life — unlike the present day, when so much of our stultifying public discourse has come to be about joining in unearned moral superiority to look down our noses.

2021 July 14, Stephen L. Carter, “What Thurgood Marshall Taught Me”, in The New York Times‎