mutilate

Verb

WordNet 3.0

Verb (3)

  1. destroy or injure severely“The madman mutilates art work”Synonyms: manglecut up
  2. alter so as to make unrecognizable“The tourists murdered the French language”Synonyms: manglemurder
  3. destroy or injure severely“mutilated bodies”Synonyms: mar
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Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

Mutilate \Mu"ti*late\, a. [L. mutilatus, p. p. of mutilare to mutilate, fr. mutilus maimed; cf. Gr. ?, ?. Cf. Mutton.]

1.Deprived of, or having lost, an important part; mutilated. --Sir T. Browne. [1913 Webster]

2.(Zool.) Having finlike appendages or flukes instead of legs, as a cetacean. [1913 Webster]


Mutilate \Mu"ti*late\, n. (Zool.) A cetacean, or a sirenian. [1913 Webster]

Mutilate \Mu"ti*late\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Mutilated; p. pr. & vb. n. Mutilating.]

1.To cut off or remove a limb or essential part of; to maim; to cripple; to disfigure; to hack; as, to mutilate the body, a statue, etc. [1913 Webster]

2.To destroy or remove a material part of, so as to render imperfect; as, to mutilate the orations of Cicero. [1913 Webster]

Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho.— Addison.[1913 Webster]

Mutilated gear, Mutilated wheel (Mach.), a gear wheel from a portion of whose periphery the cogs are omitted. It is used for giving intermittent movements. [1913 Webster]

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