With the cooperation of employers and courts, the UMW had used its quasi-governmental position to withering effect against the alternative unions.

Disgruntled with his dead-end job, Jack can sometimes use this kind of data to withering effect.

The approach of the Jan. 15 deadline for a possible military confrontation in the Persian Gulf had a withering effect on consumer confidence, dealers reported.

Despite the withering effects of age, one could see he had been doughty in his youth, and his broad shoulders still strained at the black cloth of his jacket.

Transplantation seemed to have a withering effect, so that now she spends most mornings in bed, her afternoons under medication for nervous hysteria, and her evenings in books.

Their swift-tongued fire produced a withering effect.

By their withering effect, siroccos can inflict great damage to vegetation.

The wind, which had been blowing all the morning from the N.E., increased to a heavy gale, and I shall never forget its withering effect.

He pictured squadrons of airplanes dematerializing under the withering effect of his machine.

That's the thing about paintings of primates: monkeys and apes are enough like humans that artists were unable to resist using them as proxies, often to withering effect.