[f. L. ēmasculāt-, ppl. stem of ēmasculā-re to castrate, f. ē out + mascul-us, dim. of mas male.]
1. trans. To deprive of virility, to castrate (a male person or animal).
1623. Cockeram, Emasculate. To geld.
1662. Graunt, Observ. Bills Mortality, 48. If you emasculate fewer [lambs].
1744. J. Bryant, Mythol., II. 104. Another invention … was that of emasculating men.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric., II. 221. Young cocks should be emasculated at three months old.
2. transf. and fig. To deprive of strength and vigor; to weaken, make effeminate and cowardly; to enfeeble, impoverish (language).
1608. Topsell, Serpents, 79. [Drones] lacking their sting, and by that defect, being as it were ema[s]culated.
1652. Bp. Patrick, Serm., in J. Smith’s Sel. Disc., 555. Do not … enervate your souls … do not emasculate them.
1675. Evelyn, Terra (1729), 26. ’Tis the want of Salt, which emasculates the Virtue of Seeds.
1775. T. Sheridan, Art Reading, 88. The French have emasculated their tongue.
1848. De Quincey, Protestantism, Wks. VIII. 125. Is the lightning dimmed or emasculated?
1876. C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond. (ed. 2), 296. A religion without thought is emasculated, and must dwindle to decay.
b. esp. To take the force out of (literary compositions) by removing what is supposed to be indecorous or offensive.
1756–82. J. Warton, Ess. Pope, I. v. 274. Pieces that are not emasculated with this epidemical effeminacy.
1815. Southey, Lett. (1856), II. 395. How Gifford mutilates and emasculates my reviews.
1850. Kingsley, Alt. Locke, xviii. (1879), 200. I … consented to emasculate my poems.
† 3. intr. (See quot.) Obs. rare–1.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xvii. 147. Mutation of sexes, or transition into one another … [is] observable in man … though very few … have emasculated or turned women.
