MUTILATE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.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.

See images of 'Mutilate'

Etymology of 'Mutilate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mutilate" Quotes from Famous Books

... Consider, who among inferior mortals shall imitate them becomingly? Dreamest thou they talk and act like checkmen at Banbury fair? How can thy shallow brain suffice for their vast conceptions? How darest thou say, as they do: 'Hang this fellow; quarter that; flay; mutilate; stab; shoot; press; hook; torture; burn alive'? These are royalties. Who appointed thee to such office? The Holy Ghost? He alone can confer it; but when ...

— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... is improbable. Had he been killed, the Indians would have taken particular pains to mutilate and place his body where the passing column would have seen it. That in itself is good evidence that he is living. The worst that is likely to happen is that he may be held for ransom ...

— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... over me. Thought followed thought insidiously, imperceptibly, like fold upon fold of a cloth dropped upon me, as I sat in the silent room alone. To take this girl and force back her art upon itself, to mutilate her brain-power and drug it with her roused sensuality, to turn her into a simple instrument of pleasure for myself, and lend myself to her as such. To yield to this inflowing tide of desire that beat, now, heavily through all my veins, ...

— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... royal have been plucked out for the good of the kingdom. Certain princes, too near to the throne, have been conveniently stifled between mattresses, the cause of death being given out as apoplexy. Now to stifle is worse than to mutilate. The King of Tunis tore out the eyes of his father, Muley Assem, and his ambassadors have not been the less favourably received by the emperor. Hence the king may order the suppression of a limb like the suppression of a state, ...

— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... put all things under his feet." Slavery puts HIM under the feet of an owner, with beasts and creeping things. Who, but an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith to those that grind his poor, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ...

— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

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