Definition of "devitalize" [de•vi•tal•ize]

• To diminish or destroy the strength or vitality of. (verb-transitive)

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.

• "Our work is to devitalize negativity, not revitalize it with our attitudes, thoughts, projections or actions."
• "To put Scottie with some defeated actress teaching for Miss This-Or-Thats would be to devitalize the whole idea."
• "It has been argued that the cooperative conception of the federal relationship, especially as it is realized in the policy of federal subventions to the States, tends to break down state initiative and to devitalize state policies."