mutilate
/'mju:tileit/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Verb:
- To inflict serious damage or injury upon a living being, typically by removing or destroying a body part: To cause severe disfigurement or disablement.
- To damage, ruin, or alter something severely, often by removing an essential part: To spoil the integrity, appearance, or completeness of an object, text, or work.
Examples of Usage
- Verb:
- The explosion mutilated his hand beyond recognition.
- Vandals mutilated the statue by breaking off its arms and head.
- The editor mutilated the author's manuscript by removing entire chapters.
- The disease can mutilate the leaves of the plant.
Advanced Usage
- "to be mutilated": Describes the state of having been severely damaged or disfigured.
- The documents were mutilated by fire and water.
- "mutilating": Used as an adjective to describe an action or agent that causes mutilation.
- The mutilating injury required extensive surgery.
Variants and Related Words
- Mutilation (n): The act of mutilating or the condition of being mutilated.
- The mutilation of the historical text was a crime against scholarship.
- Mutilator (n): A person or thing that mutilates.
- The serial mutilator of library books was finally caught.
Synonyms
- Disfigure: To spoil the appearance of something.
- Maim: To injure a person or animal so that part of the body is permanently damaged.
- Dismember: To cut or tear off the limbs of.
- Deface: To spoil the surface or appearance of something.
- Truncate: To shorten by cutting off a part (often used for texts or data).
Related Phrasal Verbs/Constructions
(Note: "Mutilate" is not commonly used with particles to form standard phrasal verbs. Its meaning is typically expressed directly.)
Related Idioms
- To mutilate beyond recognition: To damage something so severely that its original form or identity is lost.
- The crash mutilated the car beyond recognition.
Verb
- destroy or injure severely
- mutilated bodies
- alter so as to make unrecognizable
- The tourists murdered the French language
- destroy or injure severely
- The madman mutilates art work