Library / English Dictionary

MUTILATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Destroy or injure severely

Example:

mutilated bodies

Synonyms:

mar; mutilate

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

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

maim (injure or wound seriously and leave permanent disfiguration or mutilation)

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

force out; gouge (force with the thumb)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

mutilation (an injury that causes disfigurement or that deprives you of a limb or other important body part)

mutilator (a person who mutilates or destroys or disfigures or cripples)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Destroy or injure severely

Example:

The madman mutilates art work

Synonyms:

cut up; mangle; mutilate

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

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

damage (inflict damage upon)

Sentence frames:

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

Derivation:

mutilation (an injury that causes disfigurement or that deprives you of a limb or other important body part)

mutilator (a person who mutilates or destroys or disfigures or cripples)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Alter so as to make unrecognizable

Example:

The tourists murdered the French language

Synonyms:

mangle; murder; mutilate

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

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

distort; falsify; garble; warp (make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

His head had been horribly mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of any sort was to be found in the room.

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

It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

In the mean time they formed up in a line of sentinels, presenting under their row of white hats every type of fighting face, from the fresh boyish countenances of Tom Belcher, Jones, and the other younger recruits, to the scarred and mutilated visages of the veteran bruisers.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)