To make someone unable to feel or think clearly, usually through cold, shock, or strong emotion.
From Middle English, combining the prefix 'be-' (meaning 'to make') with 'numb' (from Old Norse 'noemi' meaning 'taking numbness'), creating a causative verb meaning 'to make numb.'
The prefix 'be-' once worked like a grammatical superpower in English—it could turn almost any adjective into a verb, so 'benumb' meant 'to make numb,' but this productive pattern mostly died out by the 17th century.
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