Definition of "anaesthetize" [an•æs•the•tize]

• Variant of anesthetize. (verb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "So let's lift a glass -- shot glass to really anaesthetize ourselves -- and salute our collective craziness: that in the face of high taxes, rising MTA fares, the impossible Byzantine task of getting our kid into school, we get to have the most fun living and raising our kids here; that by raising our kids here, their education is not only in school."
• "Even when the pundit has something of consequence to say, those six words anaesthetize the listener, encouraging them to miss the point."
• "We have come many steps closer to what Elmer Diktonius put into words in one of his aphorisms: “If the purpose of art were to anaesthetize, to make us forget life, then a hammer-blow to the skull would be the simplest art, and the best” – though perhaps not quite in the way that Diktonius meant."