disintegrate
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Recorded since 1785, dis- + integrate
Pronunciation
[edit]Verb
[edit]disintegrate (third-person singular simple present disintegrates, present participle disintegrating, simple past and past participle disintegrated)
- (transitive) To undo the integrity of, break into parts.
- 1784, Richard Kirwan, Elements of Mineralogy:
- Marlites […] are not disintegrated by exposure to the atmosphere, at least in six years.
- (science fiction, transitive) To cause to break up into infinitesimal parts through the use of a disintegrator.
- 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine[1]:
- There is a Latvian gentleman named Theodore Nemor living at White Friars Mansions, Hampstead, who claims to have invented a machine of a most extraordinary character which is capable of disintegrating any object placed within its sphere of influence.
- (intransitive) To fall apart, break up into parts.
- 1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 20:
- Hence they are eloquent, not of the present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source through which society is reborn.
Synonyms
[edit]- (transitive, to cause to break into parts) dismember, dissolve
- (intransitive, to break into one's parts) compost, decay, dissolve
- See also Thesaurus:destroy
Antonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]cause to break into parts
|
break up into one's parts
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
Anagrams
[edit]Italian
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]Verb
[edit]disintegrate
- inflection of disintegrare:
Etymology 2
[edit]Participle
[edit]disintegrate f pl
Categories:
- English terms prefixed with dis-
- English 4-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- en:Science fiction
- English intransitive verbs
- Italian non-lemma forms
- Italian verb forms
- Italian past participle forms