1
as in incapacitates
to cause severe or permanent injury to
the car crash may have crippled two people for life
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in injures
to reduce the soundness, effectiveness, or perfection of
the collision so severely crippled the ship that it had to be towed into port
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in paralyzes
to render powerless, ineffective, or unable to move
a wave of strikes crippled that nation's steel industry
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of cripples
This inefficiency is invisible during small-scale development tests but completely cripples an application’s performance under the heavy load of a real production environment.
—
Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 19 Sep. 2025
An ongoing alien siege cripples the world’s militaries, infrastructure, and communication centers but Will can run Premiere Pro, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and remote control a Tesla all at the same time.
—Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 12 Aug. 2025
Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 19 Sep. 2025
An ongoing alien siege cripples the world’s militaries, infrastructure, and communication centers but Will can run Premiere Pro, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and remote control a Tesla all at the same time.
—Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 12 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cripples
Verb
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Lorenzo confronts and incapacitates Pepe, Sonia’s main ally, before facing Sonia herself.—
Isabella Wandermurem,
Time,
24 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Gafford injures ankle The Mavericks are likely to be without one of their major frontcourt pieces this preseason.—
Christian Clark,
New York Times,
2 Oct. 2025
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Automobility directly or indirectly causes one in 34 deaths annually, injures more than 100 million people a year, and has killed as many people as the two World Wars combined.—
Henrietta Moore,
Fortune,
16 Sep. 2025
Verb
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This paralyzes executives and creates fatigue.—
Nick Ryan,
Forbes.com,
17 Sep. 2025
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The smaller wasp quickly stings the spider, injecting its powerful venom that does not kill but permanently paralyzes it.—
Ernie Cowan,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
17 Aug. 2025
Verb
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After Wednesday disables the machine with an axe, Isaac’s ability no longer works, and Thing attacks him.—
Dessi Gomez,
Deadline,
4 Sep. 2025
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To be specific, this mode disables custom actions, changes backlighting to a single color, and prevents profile switching.—
George Yang,
PC Magazine,
7 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Feinerman explained that dryness in the eyes can cause an inflammatory response that damages the pigment layer of the macula, accelerating eye aging.—
Claire Bugos,
Verywell Health,
25 Sep. 2025
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These instructions help turn off the harmful protein that damages brain cells.—
Doc Louallen,
ABC News,
24 Sep. 2025
Verb
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For Allen, this legal tool disproportionately undermines Black communities, eroding generational wealth and disconnecting families from their neighborhoods.—
Essence,
Essence,
1 Oct. 2025
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The survey also undermines the argument that tariffs will simply be a one-time price adjustment.—
Matt Egan,
CNN Money,
24 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Deadly holiday weekend mars broad crime drop The back-and-forth followed a Labor Day weekend of deadly violence in Chicago worse than in the previous two years, with seven people shot to death, according to preliminary Chicago Police Department reports.—
Andy Rose,
CNN Money,
3 Sep. 2025
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Valuing a project at cost of production rather than value in an arm’s length sale—common in all economic statistics—especially mars Chinese data.—
Bill Conerly,
Forbes.com,
21 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Yuhas said rubbing could trigger keratoconus, an eye condition that weakens the cornea.—
Stephanie Brown,
Verywell Health,
30 Sep. 2025
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And the thymus gland, the producer of white blood cells, shrinks and weakens over time.—
Jocelyn Solis-Moreira,
Flow Space,
30 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Cripples.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cripples. Accessed 9 Oct. 2025.
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