MUTILATE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Mutilate

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/mjˈutəlˌeɪt/ Listen

noun

Mutilate n. (Zool.) A cetacean, or a sirenian.

verb

Mutilate v. t. (past & past part. mutilated; pres. part. mutilating)

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.

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."

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.

adjective

Mutilate adj.

Deprived of, or having lost, an important part; mutilated.

(Zool.) Having finlike appendages or flukes instead of legs, as a cetacean.

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Etymology of 'Mutilate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mutilate" Quotes from Famous Books

... countenance. We cut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death so that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram them with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds to pieces to decorate our women's hats; we mutilate domestic animals for no reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we connive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some magical cure for our own ...

— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw

... portions have been detached. And so far does this go, that some experimentalists have carefully examined the lower orders of animals,—among them the Abbe Spallanzani, who made a number of experiments upon snails and salamanders,—and have found that they might mutilate them to an incredible extent; that you might cut off the jaw or the greater part of the head, or the leg or the tail, and repeat the experiment several times, perhaps cutting off the same member again and again; and yet each of those types would be reproduced ...

— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... almost on the same sophism; they change and mutilate the fact, they only half record things: God has care for men, he loves the human race, he wishes it well, nothing so true. Yet he allows men to fall, he often allows them to perish, he gives them goods that tend towards their destruction; and when he makes someone happy, it is after many sufferings: ...

— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... only within the last few years has it won much favour. At the present time it is much sought after. It has the reputation of being a ticklish subject to grow. Many have had it and lost it, and those who still retain a specimen are loth to mutilate it for increase. This may to some extent account for the present demand for and difficulty experienced in obtaining it. For the last three years, hard as the seasons have been within that time, its flowers have been produced in great abundance on ...

— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... flies one hundred and ten miles. He bids me tell you to follow to Huejugilla el Alto, where he says arrangements will be made for my ransom. Remember Jack Burk. He spoke of the mountains to the west of Zacatecas. Pacheco threatens to mutilate me and forward fragments to you if you do not follow to the point specified. He is watching me as I write, and one of his men will carry this letter to Mendoza, and deliver it. The situation is desperate, and it strikes me that it is best to comply with Pacheco's demands in ...

— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

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