mutilate Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb destroy or injure severely
    mangle; cut up.
    • The madman mutilates art work
  2. verb alter so as to make unrecognizable
    murder; mangle.
    • The tourists murdered the French language
  3. verb destroy or injure severely
    mar.
    • mutilated bodies

WordNet

Mu"ti*late adjective
Etymology
L. mutilatus, p.p. of mutilare to mutilate, fr. mutilus maimed; cf. Gr. , . Cf. Mutton.
Definitions
  1. Deprived of, or having lost, an important part; mutilated. Sir T. Browne.
  2. (Zoöl.) Having finlike appendages or flukes instead of legs, as a cetacean.
Mu"ti*late noun
Definitions
  1. (Zoöl.) A cetacean, or a sirenian.
Mu"ti*late transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Mutilated ; present participle & verbal noun Mutilating
Definitions
  1. To cut off or remove a limb or essential part of; to maim; to cripple; to hack; as, to mutilate the body, a statue, etc.
  2. To destroy or remove a material part of, so as to render imperfect; as, to mutilate the orations of Cicero.
    Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. Addison.

Webster 1913