
Related to desensitize: desensitisation

desensitize (someone or something) to (something)

To lessen the effect that someone or something has on someone or something. I doubt I'll ever be desensitized to my father's disapproving comments about my work. This special toothpaste should desensitize to your teeth to cold beverages.
See also: desensitize

desensitize someone to something

to make someone less sensitive to something. The doctor wanted to desensitize the allergic child to pollen. I took injections to desensitize me to house dust.
See also: desensitize
References in periodicals archive ?
Critics point out the moral and ethical implications of using human pheromones to influence professional sports but savvy athletes, coaches and managers realize the need for every possible competitive advantage, even if the advantage is merely to desensitize athletes to the Androstenone compound already being used by their opponents.
To desensitize the public is to help it view homosexuality with indifference rather than keen emotion.
Richard Kalish of Stony Brook University suggests that injecting high doses of the substances at issue may be one way to desensitize the body to the attacks, but adds it will take further research to clarify this.
The conclusions drawn from the study indicate that AIT's patented Liposome Encapsulated Allergens provide a better approach to desensitize or hyposensitize individuals who are allergic to many common allergens such as house dust mite.
To desensitize viewers to child porn, sophisticated adult magazines often use cartoons of child rape, bondage, sadism, etc.
Whereas NSAIDs work almost instantaneously, they could also potentially desensitize the body to their mode of action.
Will it desensitize people to war as battles appear on screens like part of a giant ``video game,'' or personalize the profound tragedy of war in a way that is transformational?
Many parents don't realize that young children believe frightening movies are real, having the power to turn nighttime into frightime," said Butterworth, who developed a treatment strategy to desensitize anxious children traumatized by frightening films.
While conventional bee-allergy therapies include 100 to 150 shots over a five-year period, AlleCure's vaccine, whose extract is derived from bee venom, will desensitize patients to an allergy with four shots over a period of about six months.