as in imposes
to cause someone to accept or experience something unwanted
The criminal inflicted a lifetime of distress on his unsuspecting victims.
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Recent Examples of inflicts
And, fair or not, White evangelical Christians are viewed by many as the group that inflicts the most pain.
—
John Blake, CNN Money, 26 Oct. 2025
Solitary confinement inflicts long-lasting psychological and neurological harm similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
—Terry Kupers, Oc Register, 11 Oct. 2025
Trump gets his headlines, and inflicts a jolt of panic, and doesn't care whether this survives first contact with the courts.
—Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Sep. 2025
But using the criminal law to punish political opponents as retribution inflicts far greater damage.
—Ruth Marcus, New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2025
But Venugopal points out that the lab study couldn’t capture the onslaught of enzymes, teeth gritting, and temperature variation that a real human mouth inflicts.
—Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 25 Aug. 2025
John Blake, CNN Money, 26 Oct. 2025
Solitary confinement inflicts long-lasting psychological and neurological harm similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
—Terry Kupers, Oc Register, 11 Oct. 2025
Trump gets his headlines, and inflicts a jolt of panic, and doesn't care whether this survives first contact with the courts.
—Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Sep. 2025
But using the criminal law to punish political opponents as retribution inflicts far greater damage.
—Ruth Marcus, New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2025
But Venugopal points out that the lab study couldn’t capture the onslaught of enzymes, teeth gritting, and temperature variation that a real human mouth inflicts.
—Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 25 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for inflicts
Verb
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Perplexity imposes limitations on file uploads for free users, but its documentation doesn't specify exactly what those are.—
PC Magazine,
PC Magazine,
25 Oct. 2025
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Cosmologists and mathematical physicists often seek ways to circumvent the theorem, looking to quantum gravity (or other non-standard scenarios) to break us out of the requirements that general relativity imposes.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
24 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Earth’s magnetic field radiates from our planet’s poles, arcs deep into space, and creates a vast, magnetic bubble, known as the magnetosphere, that protects us from the solar wind.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
27 Oct. 2025
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Just as the close loss at Oregon served as the cornerstone of their playoff-worthy resume last year, the loss at South Florida creates a giant stain this season.—
Jon Wilner,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
26 Oct. 2025
Verb
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By replicating the visual fidelity of reality, retina E-paper brings science closer to creating virtual worlds that the human eye cannot distinguish from the real one.—
Aamir Khollam,
Interesting Engineering,
24 Oct. 2025
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The process brings hemp fibers down to 35 millimeters so it can be spun in a blend on existing cotton spinning systems.—
Angela Velasquez,
Sourcing Journal,
23 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Inflicts.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/inflicts. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.
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