Emily Dickinson Lexicon

E-MAS'CU-LATE, v.t. [Low L. emasculo, from e and masculus, a male. See Male.]

1. To castrate; to deprive a male of certain parts which characterize the sex; to geld; to deprive of virility.
2. To deprive of masculine strength or vigor; to weaken; to render effeminate; to vitiate by unmanly softness. Women emasculate a monarch's reign. Dryden. To emasculate the spirits. Collier.