mutilate
/ˈmjuːtɪleɪt
/verb [with object]
1Inflict a violent and disfiguring injury on: most of the prisoners had been mutilated...
- When the sisters' father went to the morgue to check, he found his daughter had not only been killed, but her body had been horrifically mutilated.
- Identification was proving difficult because some of the bodies were severely mutilated.
- He is one of Scotland's most revered monarchs yet his body was mutilated and his head used as a football by the English foe.
Synonyms
mangle, maim, disfigure, cut to pieces, cut up, hack up, butcher, dismember, tear limb from limb, tear apart, lacerate
1.1Inflict serious damage on: the fine carved screen was mutilated in the 18th century...
- Were the images destroyed, desecrated or mutilated because they were potent or impotent?
- Although badly mutilated by quarrying, some of the defences can still be traced, especially on the north and north-west sides.
Synonyms
vandalize, damage, deface, spoil, mar, ruin, destroy, wreck, violate, desecrate
North American informal trash
rare disfeature
Derivatives
mutilator
/ noun ...- A good start at rectifying the situation would be the swift arrest and visible punishment of those responsible for the massacre, including the mutilators caught on film.
- In addition to the family of cannibalistic mutilators, there is a whole bunch of weird-looking people in the basement, doing medical experiments on mutants.
- Just like self - mutilators cannot stop cutting, I couldn't stop starving myself or binging and purging.
Origin
Early 16th century: from Latin mutilat- 'maimed, mutilated, lopped off', from the verb mutilare, from mutilus 'maimed'.