Library / English Dictionary

DISFIGURE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Mar or spoil the appearance of

Example:

The vandals disfigured the statue

Synonyms:

blemish; deface; disfigure

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "disfigure" is one way to...):

deflower; impair; mar; spoil; vitiate (make imperfect)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "disfigure"):

mangle; maul (injure badly by beating)

mark; pit; pock; scar (mark with a scar)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

disfiguration (an appearance that has been spoiled or is misshapen)

disfigurement (the act of damaging the appearance or surface of something)

disfigurement (an appearance that has been spoiled or is misshapen)

Credits

 Context examples: 

A portable 3-D scanning device developed by Sri Lankan and US researchers can quickly measure limb enlargement of patients with the disfiguring condition elephantiasis that resulted from lymphatic filariasis infection.

(New portable device to gauge severity of elephantiasis, SciDev.Net)

I have known a face not materially disfigured by a few, but he abominates them.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The whole face of the country was scarred and disfigured, mottled over with the black blotches of burned farm-steadings, and the gray, gaunt gable-ends of what had been chateaux.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him out from amid the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his wit, for he is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at him by the passers-by.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece of furniture between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings, no remembrances.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Foully murdered, with a score of wounds upon him and a rope round his neck, his poor friend had been cast from the upper window and swung slowly in the night wind, his body rasping against the wall and his disfigured face upon a level with the casement.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Biologist Dario Zamboni, of the University of São Paulo's Ribeirão Preto Medical School, said: Our study demonstrates that the presence of the virus increases by at least three times the possibility of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, which destroys and disfigures a patient’s face.

(Study uncovers cause of aggressive leishmaniasis strain, SciDev.Net)

Do you remember when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He had that kind of shallow black eye—I want a better word to express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into—which, when it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured, for a moment at a time, by a cast.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)