Meaning & use
traumatize
Last updated
Meanings
verbtransitive
To cause someone deep and lasting emotional shock or distress through a frightening or painful experience.
Grammar: Takes an object, often in the passive: she was traumatized by the accident.
Patterns
- traumatize someone
- be traumatized by something
The house fire traumatized the whole family.
Soldiers can be traumatized by what they see in war.
The experience traumatized him so much that he never swam again.
verbtransitiveinformalhumorous
To upset or embarrass someone greatly, often in an exaggerated and joking way.
Grammar: Informal and humorous; the harm is not really lasting.
Patterns
- be traumatized by something
My little sister was traumatized by the ending of the movie.
I was traumatized when my teacher saw my old photos.
Seeing my dad dance at the wedding traumatized me.
Word forms
| third person singular | traumatizes |
|---|---|
| past tense | traumatized |
| past participle | traumatized |
| -ing form | traumatizing |
Common combinations
- deeply traumatized
- The survivors were deeply traumatized by the flood.
- traumatize a child
- Harsh punishment can traumatize a child for years.
- emotionally traumatized
- The witness seemed emotionally traumatized and could not speak.
- be traumatized by
- He was traumatized by the crash.
- traumatizing experience
- Losing her home was a traumatizing experience.
Synonyms and how they differ
- shock
- Shock may be brief and mild, while traumatize suggests damage that lasts.
- scar
- Scar is used figuratively to stress that the harm will stay with someone, but it is often less clinical than traumatize.
- distress
- Distress means to make anxious or upset, with no suggestion of lasting psychological injury.
- horrify
- Horrify describes the immediate reaction of disgust or fear, whereas traumatize looks at the long-term effect.
Opposites
Word family
- trauma noun
- a deeply distressing experience or the harm it causes
- traumatic adjective
- causing great shock or distress
- traumatized adjective
- deeply shocked or disturbed
- traumatically adverb
- in a deeply upsetting way
Commonly confused: traumatize or traumatic?
traumatize vs traumatic
Traumatic describes the event that causes the harm, while traumatized describes the person who suffers it.
Practice
The child was ___ by the earthquake and still has nightmares months later.
Choose one answer.
Traumatized is the past participle used after was to describe the child. Traumatic would describe the event itself, not the person.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “traumatize”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.